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BRAIN RAMBLES. 



BY 



JUNIUS L. HEMPSTEAD. 



Auttior of 

EFIESTA ; OR, THE CASTLE OF SILENCE. NEDETTE, THE ARCAD- 
IAN MAID. REGINALD; OR A FISHERMAN'S LUCK. AFTER 
MANY DAYS AND OTHER STORIES. THOMPSON, THE 
DETECTIVE. MUSINGS OF MORN (.Poems), PAR- 
NASSIAN NICHES {Poems). THE DESCHANOS. 
A CHEQUERED DESTINY. 



F*ulDlisl::iers : 

Ben-Franklin Publishing Co., 

NO. 45 TO 5 J ROSE STREET, 
NEW YORK CITY. 



A. D. igos. 



TS. ^CV4 



UBRASY of wONGRHSS 

AUG 8 1905 

iJop.yri«nx cuiry 
GUI 









Copyrighted 1S)05 

By 

JUNIUS L. HEMPSTEAD 



CONTENTS. 



I Am the Frost King 7 

Too Late 9 

I Ask No Vow 10 

Call Back 11 

When the Last Bugle Shall Blow 13 

Thou Can'st Not Cheat the Earth 14 

The Baron's Last Revel 18 

I Am Lonely 20 

Every Year 2.2 

Love's Reverie 23 

The Little Brick Schoolhouse 24 

The Ship of State 25 

The Silent Gray Army 27 

Spring 29 

Summer 31 

Autumn 32 

Winter 35 

The Sword of Justice 37 

In the West 38 

Neptune's Harper 40 

Wine Bubbles 42 

Silence 43 

The Gray Sea Wolf 46 

The Stone King 48 

Hymn to the Sungod 49 

Books 50 

Eternity 51 

The Bride of Time 53 

The Old Woodpile 55 

Gerty 56 

Poor Brown Hands 57 

Alas! Proud Spain 59 

June Love 60 



Ember Reveries ^^ 

Drifting 63 

Israel 64 

I Saw a Ripple ^ 

Stranded 67 

The Curfew Tolls 69 

Carmen 70 

The Forty-Niner's Return IZ 

Words 75 

Life's Antithesis 11 

Echoes of Memory 79 

We Will Drink 80 

The Broken Pitcher 82 

The Sweet Face at the Door 84 

Pioneer Graves 85 

Wanted — A Friend 87 

To Junius L. Hempstead — A Reply 88 

Only a Confederate Soldier 90 

Contemplation 92 

Faith 94 

The Trusts 95 

One By One 96 

Fate Is a Flower 98 

Autumn's Brown-Robed Queen 99 

Thought's Empire loi 

God Has No Creeds 102 

Emotions 104 

Laugh ! Laugh ! 105 

An Ancient Death Mask 106 



UNPUBLISHED POEMS. 

Temptation 107 

The Witch's Cauldron 109 

The Country Girl no 

The Slanderer 112 

Weave, Old Dame 112 

There Is a Line 114 

Who Would Barter— 116 

4 



Let There Be Light 117 

The Spider Vice 120 

Death's Banquet 122 

Time, the Iconoclast 123 

By the Sea 125 

Creation's Doom 127 

Twilight Reveries 129 

The Last Man 130 

Ecce Homo 131 

The Soul of a Star 132 

My Dream Star 133 

Daughter of Fate 135 

The Castle of Kismet 135 

What Is Man? 140 

Truth 142 

Old Age 144 

The Song of the Type 146 

Life's Undertow 149 

What God Saw, Sees, and Hears 151 

God's Temple 168 

The Waif of a Wreck , 170 

Grandpa Is Dead 185 

An Ode to Human Rights 186 

Christmas at Col. C. H. Aliens, A. D. 1899 187 

Little Spanish Papite 189 



I AM THE FROST KING. 

I am the pale frost king, 

I am the year's autumnal ghost, 
I color ev'ry living thing 

With shades that suit me most. 
How skillfully I trace 

My gnomelike designs, 
In ev'ry vacant place 

You'll find my zigzag lines. 

No one has seen my face, 

My breath's as light as down, 
My veil of frosted lace 

Turns vegetation brown. 
Who hears my noiseless tread? 

I steal on summer unaware. 
The forest trees are dead, 

Their branches brown and bare. 

I weave with wondrous skill 
Cobwebs for the vanished years. 

On ev'ry glade and hill 
My dainty crystal spears 



Gleam from the upper wod, 
Their martial-Hke array 

So sHm, so white, so cold, 
Sweep autumn's hosts away. 



Spikelets, angles and leaves. 

Needles that deftly stitch 
The patches winter weaves 

In ev'ry moss-grown ditch. 
With each pale brownie band 

I etch in autumn's night. 
With winter's chilling hand 

My tapestries of white. 



I breathe, and all in vain, 

They brave my chilling will, 
The brooks with gentle pain 

Flow never more from vale and hill, 
I hush the brooklet's song, 

The song that summer sings. 
With gyve, and icy thong, 

I bind autumn's crinkled wings. 

I make a stealthy raid, 

Eolus sings to me 
From his borean icebound glade 

Beyond the Arctic sea. 
Red autumn trembles when 

My henchman pipes his lay. 
For well I know that then 

The year has passed away. 

8 



TOO LATE. 

I read your letter, and I write 

As I sit by his shrouded bier, 
Could you but sit with me to-night, 

And see the anguish written here 
On this white suffering face; 

If your false heart could know, 
Your soft, white hand could trace 

These lines of aging woe, 
That death could not efface, 

I know your tears would flow. 

Poor trusting heart, his faith in you 

Was the faith of the angel's God. 
Ah ! could you, with me only strew 

Some lilies o'er his hallowed sod, 
Broken-hearted life would well 

Up from this chamber of the dead ; 
His dumb, cold lips could gasping tell 

To me — the cruel words you said. 
When you, with love's enchanting spell. 

Crushed this dead heart that humbly plead. 

I washed the crimson, clotted stain 

From this round deadly hole, 
The bullet in his maddened brain 

Freed his immortal soul. 
Oh, how he loathed to go, 

He checked life's ebbing tide, 
And hushed his sobs of woe. 

Lest you, his promised bride, 
Should feel; and anguished know 

How love lived, and how love died. 



You can do him now no harm. 

Your letter came too late, 
This lifeless head upon my arm 

Belongs to death's estate. 
His last lips breathed your name. 

The last look in his eyes 
Absolved you from all blame. 

I caught the gurgling, ebbing sighs 
That gasped for you a prayer. 

For you, I closed his glazing eyes. 

I read your missive through. 

In God's great judgment day 
What anguish will be meted you. 

How will you wash the stain away? 
His g-and soul, for your little life, 

How shall the debt be paid ? 
When gentle mercies pale 

Have been justly weighed 
In God's eternal scale. 

Where will you stand, oh, heartless maid ? 



I ASK NO VOW. 

I ask no vow, nor bind thee 

With pledge that lips may break ; 

I dream what faith should be, 
Oh! let me never wake. 

10 



No doubt shall feverish leap 
Thro' pulse and throbbing vein, 

All my soul shall sleep 

And dream, and dream, again. 

O, fond heart beat and know, 
'Tis of my life the whole ; 

Why do I love you so? 

Dream of my unfettered soul. 

Swear not always to be true, 
For hearts like seasons change; 

The years that come to you, 
May yet be cold and strange. 

Thus happy hours that seem 

So true, so loyal now. 
May vanish like a dream 

And leave a broken vow. 



CALL BACK. 



Call back this fleeting breath 

From the dark chambers of the dead ; 
Call back from painless death 

The young soul that heavenward fled. 

Disturb this sweet repose. 

This godlike, peaceful rest; 
Disturb one fragrant rose 

On this dear, pulseless breast. 

II 



Call back the sweet young face, 

So pallid and so still, 
With all its comely grace, 

And feel these pulses thrill 

With red, feverish life again. 

Nay, nay, why should it be? 
Call back the olden pain, 

When her pure soul is free. 

Call back this dreamless clay 

To this vast world of sin, 
To fret another life away 

In its eternal din. 

Call back the loving heart 

Once wracked with harrowing pain, 
To weep, to moan, to start. 

To live this life again. 

To crush once more this heart, 

That silent and alone 
Played life's allotted part 

Without a plaint or moan. 

A bruis'd and shaken reed. 

This casket of dead clay. 
From which the soul is freed, 

Will soon be laid away. 

Arouse thee from this sleep! 

I would not have it so. 
Nor ope these eyes to weep — 

Great, loving God, no, no! 



WHEN THE LAST BUGLE SHALL BLOW. 

Wheft the last bugle shall blow, 

Then riderless over the plain 
The horses shall heedlessly go, 

Where heaps of brave troopers are slain. 
Where the glint of the saber's clash 

Is red as the glow-worm's dim light — 
War's sabers, that savagely slash, 

With all of war's furious might. 
Till the sullen and merciless foe 

Slowly, but stubbornly, yield — 
Gun for gun, sword for sword, they go, 

Leaving their dead on the field. 

When the last bugle shall blow 

For the dead that are scattered around 
In the twilight's vanishing glow. 

That darkens the shadowy ground. 
And night, with its slipperless creep, 

Like a dismal and merciless pall, 
Covers the dead, and their silent sleep 

Is beyond the last bugle call. 
The wounded stare up at the sky. 

Parched with a feverish thirst — 
Thickly these brave soldiers lie 

Where the shells fell thickest and burst. 

How sullen the roar of battle, 

Horses and riders down; 
They gasp, and death's solemn rattle 

Is a step to some soldier's renown. 
When the last bugle shall blow, 

Earth's tattoo will fall on each ear; 

13 



The dead to their resting shall go 
Without a shrouding or bier. 

And all the hushed air is still 

Above the long rows of the slain — 

They lie by the grass-trodden hill, 
Who will never hear tattoo again. 

When the last bugle shall blow, 

And sound for death a retreat. 
The riderless steed will not know 

The corpse that lies at his feet. 
Never again will his rein 

Curb the proud, nettl'd steed. 
As he tosses his tangled mane 

And increases his wayward speed, 
"Boots and saddles" shall nevermore 

Prick up his small, dainty ears — 
The trooper you gallantly bore 

Has answer'd the roll-call of years. 



THOU CANST NOT CHEAT THE EARTH. 

A monarch, in his pride, 

Sat on his gilded throne. 
And standing by his side 

Were those who worked in stone. 

"Alas! I am growing old 

And have no child or heir; 
My jewels and my gold 

Are weighty and a care. 

14 



"Carve me a crypt-like vault 

All in the solid stone, 
Without a seam or fault, 

Where I can hide my own. 

"I wish to cheat the earth, 
Where all things swift decay; 

Not in its rotund girth 

Shall my bones be laid away. 

"Build the vast walls full high, 
Where the glad morning light 

Will fill the eastern sky, 
And banish dismal night. 

"Build me a tomb divinely grand 

On yon towering crest 
That overlooks the land 

Towards the east and west. 

"Emboss each polished stone 
With vines that climb and cling, 

Where wreaths of lilies blown 
Shall guard your silent king. 

"Carve fluted shafts of white 
And angels on their knees, 

Robed in fine raiment light, 
Above the sculptured frieze, 

"No damp and marshy ground 
Shall hold my last remains. 

No grass-grown, humble mound. 
No frost, or chiUing rains, 

15 



"Shall beat upon my breast. 

Or level the rank sod, 
.Where I might silent rest, 

A dark, forgotten clod." 

**0 king, thy august will 

Is thy servants' gracious law, 

Our best, painstaking skill, 
Without a break or flaw, 

"Shall carve with steady hand 

A mausoleum white. 
By square and compass plann'd. 

On yonder frowning height." 

They carved the granite base, 
And fashioned the marble rock 

With balustrade, and vase 
Hewn from a solid block. 

They polished flower and wreath. 
Each bud, and carven spray, 

Until the space beneath 

Was light as gladsome day. 

"King! That which was begun 
In years now dead and past. 

Behold ! our work is done, 
And thou canst sleep at last 

"Within the eyried tomb. 

Far up the vaulted sky. 
Where no eternal gloom 

Shall make thee moan and sigh." 

i6 



The aged king was pale, 
A specter, dark and grim, 

With groan, and gobhn wail, 

Leer'd through the gloom at him, 

"What, ho! Sir King, you mock 
Pale Time: I am the Earth. 

Your tomb of carven rock 

Fills my dead soul with mirth. 

*T was before hoar time began 
The genius of the underwold. 

What then to me is mortal man, 
Who mines for gems and gold 

^'Within my Protean loom. 
That he may carve and mold 

A lofty marble tomb. 
To hide his sordid gold ? 

"Your bones shall turn to dust. 
Your marv'lous carven pile 

Shall sink beneath the crust 
Of yonder tow'ring isle. 

"All ! All ! Shall yet be mine ! 

The free-born winds shall kiss 
The ocean's seething brine. 

And all shall turn to this. 

"The rains shall, gnawing, beat 
Where thy dead form is laid. 

Thy insecure retreat, 

Thy polished walls, shall fade. 

17 



"And not a carven stone 
Shall mark the kingly spot, 

.When I shall claim my own, *" 
My own, that time begot. 

*'I am life, my Protean womb 
Teams with a thousand births; 

I am my God's eternal tomb, 
First born of buried earths. 

"Dust, O king, thou art. 
Within thy marble urn. 

Thou art of earth a part, 
To dust thou shalt return." 



THE BARON'S LAST REVEL. 

A reveler sat in his hall alone, 
Where torches flared from walls of stone ; 
Halberts and lances, swords and shields. 
Embroideries of gold, with crimson fields, 
Empaneled the baron's walls. 

Alone he sat at the banquet board, 
His mailed hand on his good sword ; 
A look of contempt swept over his face. 
As each knight reeled in his chosen place. 
And slept on the oaken floor. 

i8 



He filled the beaker to its golden rmi, 
He pressed his lips to the flushed brim, 
And quaffed every drop with its ruby shine, 
While he blessed every grape on the fruitful vine. 
Then he stared at the wide-open door. 

Welcome, brave Rudolph ; my knights, you see, 
Have drained too deeply of the flagons three ; 
I alone of this doughty throng 
Can hum a ditty or sing a song 

To the maidens of the Rhine. 

Not Sir Rudolph ? Then who may he be 
That stands in full armor in front of me ? 
Sir Baron, I drink a bout with thee ; 
Here's to the maiden sisters three, 
That dwell 'neath the Rhine. 

The black knight laughed a mocking laugh 
As he watched the baron slowly quaff 
The aged wine, with its beaded shine — 
The wine that was brewed 'neath the Rhine 
By the maiden sisters three. 

The baron drank his bout and stared — 
The knight was gone, the torches flared, 
His icy breath filled the dankish air, 
The sound of steps on the terraced stair 
Died faintly away. 

A phantom hand, a goblet old. 
Green with age from the underwold. 
Flitted before the baron's face. 
Then melted into empty space 
With a mist-like glow. 

19 



A bubble from the phantom cup 
Flashed and glimmered and lit up 
The trophied walls with a blood-red glow. 
Then grew and grew, now fast, now slow. 
Till its brightness filled the hall. 

The baron gazed with stupid eyes ; 
The bubble grew to monstrous size ; 
It burned into his rugged soul, 
This bubble from the phantom bowl. 
Blown by phantom lips. 

With half-drawn sword, armed cap-a-pie, 
His life went out in this crimson sea ; 
The soul so wilful, brave and proud, 
Wrapped in the wine cup's ghoulish shroud. 
Was claimed by the maidens three. 



I AM LONELY. 



Am I lonely ? Go ask the bird 
That cleaves his gloaming flight. 

When drowsy tinklings of the herd 
Fall on the ears of sable night. 

Flitting through the shadowy air 
That broods o'er bosky eve. 

Poor lone bird, tell, oh ! tell me where 
Does thy mate pine and grieve ? 

Is it full far to her soft nest ? 

And does she pine for thee 
Upon some woodland crest 

Within some sheltering tree ? 

20 



I hear thy unanswered call, 

Shrill pipings that awake 
Love's echoes, that so softly fall 

On mead and marshy brake. 

Speed thou the hours that are 

Drifting like thy low mellow note. 

Which trembles in the hushed air 
From thy wild plaintive throat. 

Lone bird, oh ! friendless one. 

Where shall thy sad thoughts find 

Such echoes, when the day is done. 
So soft, so lingering and so kind. 

Through tangled mists that shroud 
The full moon's fretted rays. 

Hid by a bord'ring cloud 

That muffles thy receding lays. 

Speed faster, speed afar, 

Bird of the fleeting wing, 
Who would thy homing mar. 

Thou panting, weary thing? 

In twilight pale and grim. 
Stay not, sad bird, to rest. 

Perchance upon some swaying limb 
Thou'lt find thy own dear nest. 

Far o'er the starry sea 

A dark speck speeding by. 

This lone wanderer soon will be 
Lost in the distant sky. 

21 



EVERY YEAR. 

We grow grayer every year, 

Colder seem the waves, 
The prospect seems more drear 

As we toil like galley slaves. 

We bind the heart of youth 
With Saturn's silent gyves, 

We see more clear the truth 
That rounds our little lives. 

We hear the echoes of the years 
That haunt the aisles of time ; 

How their music sadly cheers, 
How solemnly they chime. 

We heed each mournful stroke 
That tolls for other days, 

As if an angel spoke, 
Or sang celestial lays. 

We bend lower every year. 
And childish is our talk. 

The trials more severe. 

There is a totter in our walk. 

Yet we linger every year, 
And live in the shadowy past, 

So old, so brown, and sear, 
Like a leaf that dreads the blast. 

22 



We are more patient ev'ry year. 
Hence more willing to go; 

There's naught but sadness here ; 
We welcome life's dread foe. 

Our wants are fewer ev'ry year, 

A little less to do. 
We feel the end is near, 

Though hidden from our view. 

Our hearts beat slower ev'ry year, 
Our pulses grow more chill, 

Our sight grows dim and blear. 
Our voices grow more shrill. 

There are fewer every year ; 

The forms that lie so low 
Have naught to rue or fear 

From years that come and go. 

A new headstone every year, 
In the company of the bless'd ; 

Why should we shed a tear. 
Or disturb their peaceful rest? 



LOVE'S REVERIE. 

Gloaming shades surround me. 

Pale stars their lamps renew. 
Knowest thou where my thoughts would be ? 

Sweet one, with you. 

23 



How do the dusky shadows creep 
Through the still halls of eve. 

Then I my lonely vigils keep 
And fancies weave. 

If I am lonely, ah ! 'tis then 
I steal from day's last beams — 

Steal from the haunts of men, 
To live in dreams. 

Dreams dear, sweet dreams of thee. 
That hallow old memories true. 

Then I gaze o'er the star-lit sea 
And waft my love to you. 



THE LITTLE BRICK SCHOOLHOUSE. 

In the shade of a crumbling mill 
The little brick schoolhouse stands. 

Near by is the grassy-grown rill 

That twirl'd the broad leathern bands. 

No water runs through the race 
That turned the creaking wheel; 

Only a moss-grown trace, 

And the pinions of rusted steel. 

The master, impartially just, 

Who ruled with a birchen rod. 
Has mingled his mortal dust 

With the silent dust of the sod 



34 



Where are the brown-eyed Annies 
Who sat at their desks in school? 

The bewitching blue-eyed Fannies 
That learned every lesson by rule? 

How have the little feet traveled 
Down sorrow's unending way; 

How patiently time unraveled 
The past with its yesterday. 

High hopes were pebbles to lie 
On time's far-reaching beach, 

Whose shore was sandy and dry, 
With its pebbles beyond their reach. 

Search through old papers well, 

Read over the faded news 
Of death lists that mournfully swell 

The mounds that enrich stately yews. 

We see by the other dim light, 

The light of the years that have sped, 

That time, in his noiseless flight, 
Has numbered them with the dead. 



THE SHIP OF STATE. 

Mariner, do not sleep, 
The storm is almost here; 

Over the angry deep 

With caution bravely steer. 

^5 



Bold mariner, awake ! 

Trim the bellying sails, 
The storm will surely break ; 

The breeze in fitful gales. 

Already stirs the deep ; 

The waves are running high. 
And with each sprayey leap 

They seem to touch the sky. 

Hold hard the trusty helm ; 

We are roughly tossed 
Upon this wat'ry realm 

Where thousands have been lost. 

Alas ! we cannot see, 

Night has captured day; 

Across the inkish lea 
The lightning's flashing play. 

The night is dark and wild, 
The storm is thick'ning fast, 

The clouds are wrathful piled 
Above the tap'ring mast. 

Ah ! still you calmly sleep 
While clouds in heavy banks. 

With vault and twisting leap, 
Rise up in somber ranks. 

The wild winds roaring howl, 
And thunders awful crash, 

With low and rumbling growl, 
The lightnings vivid flash. 

26 



O, mariner, what hope ? 

Must this good ship go down ? 
Can human wisdom cope 

With the storm king's angry frown? 

Of wind and wave a sport, 
Can you see the crested reef? 

Or the far distant port 
That promises rehef ? 

Oh ! will this stormy sea ? 

This somber, leaden sky, 
Bring sure death to thee 

When help is almost nigh? 

Bold seaman, do not sleep, 

For other lives than thine 
Oft trusted thee to keep 

Thy watch on the treacherous brine. 



THE SILENT GRAY ARMY. 

Behold vast armies of the dead, 
Where all the sentries sleep ; 

They march along with measured tread, 
And onward silent sweep. 

They fear no mortal foes ; 

With ranks well closed and dressed 
They glide along in phantom rows 

To their eternal rest. 

27 



They make no noise or sound, 

These spectral armies vast, 
No sentries pace with solemn round 

To guard the vanished past. 

A Southern legion with pale ranks 

For time's far distant goal, 
Nor spur or sword forbidden clanks, 

No sergeant calls the roll. 

No shrilly bugle braying breaks 
Their slumbers dead and deep. 

No mount'd guard or corporal wakes 
Then from their dreamless sleep. 

No inspection, no dress parade, 
No brass accoutrements to shine, 

No gen'ral of this brave brigade 
To pass along the line. 

No stern command to forward march. 
No halt, no bivouac for the days, 

But on, and on, thro' Fame's gray arch, 
With steady tramp they move always. 

No martial music thrilling cheers 

This army without arms, 
Their reveille the vanished years, 

No long roll sounds alarm. 

They heed no quick command 

To promptly fall in line. 
No distant woods by glasses scann'd 

Of sturdy oak or swaying pine, 

28 



No volleys thund'ring roll, 

From muskets trim and bright. 

No charging up the frowning knoll. 
No enemies to smite. 

Their compact ranks with drooping plumes 

Move ever onward by, 
We see them vanish in the gloom 

With pennons streaming high. 



SPRING. 



What coy young goddess peeps 
Through winter's crystal gate, 

Where each bud numbly sleeps 
In winter's dead estate? 

'Tis spring, and well we know 
That Pan will surely smile, 

The brooks will gurgling flow 
Through vale and shaded aisle. 

Spread thy soft carpets down, 
Fasten them with flowers, 

Hide winter's sombre frown 

With April's refreshing showers. 

Peep from thy cheerless beds 
O shoots that darkly sleep, 

Lift up thy tinted heads 
And sunward shyly creep. 

29 



Fear not the storms and cold. 
But open wide thine eyes. 

Leaf and petal unfold 
For brighter, softer skies 



Shall make thee soon forget 
The downy banks of snow ; 

Then beds of mignonette 
Will sweetly, coyly blow. 



Clamber, O fruitful vine, 
Let snow-imprisoned sap. 

Loosed by a Hand divine, 

Enrich summer's ripening lap. 



Be vigorous, dear maid. 
Deck summer's royal brow 

With emeralds display'd 

From stem and barren bough. 



Fresh vigor give to life, 

Numbed by the winter's chill. 
Unlock conditions rife. 

O'er meadow, vale and hill; 



Lay by thy downy shroud 
That covers ridge and plain, 

Then verdant spring uncow'd 
Will broadly smile again. 

30 



SUMMER. 

Where is thy court, O queen? 

In some secure retreat 
Where walls of leafy green 

Shut out the midday heat? 
How indolent the hours that creep 

So sultry and so still, 
While vagrant shadows sleep. 

Lulled by each murmuring rill. 

Spring-tinted buds are blown 

For summer's naiad train, 
Where bees and insects drone 

Their lazy-winged refrain. 
Mirthful Pan, with his mellow flute, 

Guards summer's rosy throne ; 
Listening herds are mute 

While echoes whisper from their halls of stone. 

How lazily the droning bees 

Seek sweets from fragrant flowers, 
And hide their wealth within the trees 

For winter's chilling hours. 
Sweet songsters from cool woodland aisles 

Sing with a riper strain ; 
Lazy Time, with ardent wiles, 

Woos wide fields of ripening grain. 

Welcome zephyrs, grateful, cool 

The sun god's golden rays, 
While summer sits beside some pool 

Crown'd with her fading bays. 

31 



Apollo peeps from cloudless skies 
With yellow spray-like beams, 

While morbid summer sighs, 
Lost in her nuptial dreams. 

Fleecy sheep doze beneath the shade 

Of summer's verdant wing, 
Or browse in woodland glade 

Where shadows coyly bring 
Some freshness to the heat 

That parches mead and plain. 
Their lambs with plaintive bleat 

Pant for the cooling rain. 

Be proud, O queen, for soon 

Will thy green kingdom pass ; 
The dial mark of noon 

On Time's bright plate of brass 
Is shadowless and clear; 

Soon shall high hot hours creep, 
And westward slowly veer; 

Then, then, good-night and sleep. 



AUTUMN. 



I. 

Who is this flaming miss, 
Whose lips so redly bum? 

She comes to wanton kiss 
The leaves that slowly turn. 

32 



A crimson, shameless maid, 
With Hmbs so brown and bare. 

And yet so chaste and staid, 
With jewels in her hair. 

II. 
Flowers withering feel 

Her hot and fatal breath ; 
She tramples 'neath her heel 

Crinkled hostages of death. 
How she changes everything 

In her drear realm of woe — 
She woos the aeolian king 

When zephyrs softly blow. 

III. 
The whip-poor-will's plaintive call 

Echoes thro' each lonely glen ; 
The rays of the rising moon fall 

Aslant of the low-browed fen. 
The white breath of the frost king glows 

On fallen autumn leaves, 
Forerunner of the chilling snows. 

That will hang from the crystal eaves. 

IV. 

The huntsman's matin gun 

Rings through the sunburnt vale, 
Ere the peep of the lazy sun 

Greets the song of the timid quail. 
The hazy air is chill. 

As it hangs in the leaden sky ; 
The sun creeps o'er the hill. 

So round, so red and shy. 

33 



V. 

What sad notes vibrant ring 

With ev'ry phantom gale ; 
What song is this you sing 

Through meads and crimson dale? 
What strange, wild minstrels play 

On harps of sapphire gold, 
Then sadly steal away, 

Because they fear the cold. 



VI. 

Rich jewels brownly glow 

In your thorn-woven crown ; 
^olian breezes blow 

On robes so thin and brown ; 
Your veil of translucent hues 

Hangs from your haughty head, 
Enriched with pale opal dews, 

That sparkle in every thread. 



VII. 

Goddess of each withering year. 

With victory elate, 
With flame, and torch, and spear, 

You come to devastate. 
O proud be jeweled dame, 

Your banners flaunting wave. 
Like some dread oriflamme, 

O'er summer's rustling grave. 

34 



VIII. 

Child of the fading year, 

Who will lay your dead robes away. 
That autumn's tinted bier 

May rest on its cold bed of clay ? 
The crimsons, sapphires, gold, 

Must melt in the diamond dew ; 
Your robes shall shrink and mold, 

When the snow shall bury you. . 



WINTER. 



Winter throws his white gauntlet down 

In autumn's purpling list ; 
Over the heather brown 

He spreads a chilling mist. 
Borean winds must blow 

To hide the buds of spring. 
Till winding sheets of snow 

Hide every dormant thing. 

O Erlking, all unseen. 

You stay deft nature's hand 
With your glittering sheen. 

Spun in some northern land, 
Where frigid Norsemen hold 

Vigils in their ice palace halls, 
Where all is bleak and cold. 

And snow forever falls. 

35 



O crystal king, your crown 

Is the aurora's flashing light; 
Your ermine robe of down 

Was woven in a night. 
Within the arctic zone. 

Where ice eternal drifts, 
And winds forever moan 

Through slowly melting rifts. 

The wild bird pipes his call 

From brown and withered heath; 
Clear brooks no longer brawl; 

Sad autumn's crimson wreath 
Hangs on the fading brow 

Of numb, despairing spring. 
Tall leafless branches bow 

To winter's killing king. 

Crystal fringes loop 

From limb and low-brow'd roof 
To shield the befeathered troop 

That shyly hold aloof 
From hands that scatter crumbs 

Over the crisp and downy snow, 
That shrouded, noiseless comes, 

Like some unwelcome foe. 

What are these ghostiy shrouds 

That leave a deadly sting? 
It is the voice beyond the clouds — 

The voice of gentle spring. 
Though leaf by leaf may fall, 

The frosts of winter's glow, 
There is beneath this all 

The season's deathless flow. 

36 



There is another frost that sears 

Our brown and golden locks ; 
It is the frost of fleeting years, 

That grimly, sadly mocks 
The springtime of our youth 

And summer's golden prime. 
When the Jewish gleaner, Ruth, 

Is the embodiment of time. 



THE SWORD OF JUSTICE. 

Hail to Justice ! for thy good sword 
Rusts in its tarnish'd sheath ; 

Behold corruption's horde 
Woos to this Nation's death 

The liberty our grandsires gave. 
And for this right they bled. 

Does might make right a slave? 
Has Astrea meekly fled? 

Unsheath'd do thou uphold 
All the power of legal might 

Unbought by mammon's gold; 
Bind the cankering blight 

That heralds greed and shame ; 
Follow the dragon to his lair 

With torch that gleams aflame 
That Hope may not despair. 

Strike thou for human right. 

Place Justice at the helm. 
Blaze thou, oh ! beacon light, 
That naught may overwhelm 



The liberties our fathers bought 

When honor held on high 
The flag that freemen sought 

By death to deify. 

The sword of Justice sleeps, 

For mankind is unjust; 
Blind Astrea in silence weeps, 

Foul greed and its attendant lust 
Trample freedom into the mire 

And mock the law at will. 
Great wealth with its insane desire 

Is Pandora's box with naught but ill. 

Flash thou, dread Nemesian blade. 
The Nation yet shall quake 
When human right betrayed 

Shall from its trance awake. 
Its frenzied stroke shall smite 

With destruction's shackl'd hand, 
Till justice, truth and right 

Shall redeem our suffering land. 



IN THE WEST. 



We sit, dear heart, in the gloaming, 
Looking out to the West ; 

Backward thro' sweet vistas roaming 
We recall all that's best 
In our lives. 

38 



Side by side we gaze on the sun 
Creeping adown the flushed sky, 

When the day is undone, 
And the stars hang on high 
Their bright lamps. 

The clouds gray and golden 
Gather in a luminous heap ; 

While days that were olden 
Their dear, dear vigils keep 
In the sky. 

Oh ! how fondly we gaze 

Through the blue tinted rifts, 

That gleam like vanishing haze, 
As each cloud gently sifts 
Its resplendent rays. 

Away over and beyond 

What visions we so dimly see ; 
They seem some dear bond 

That binds you forever to me 
While we drift. 

Our trials are dimly blended 
While we face the gray West, 

Our sorrows and hardships ended 
Have died in each breast 
Long ago. 

The evening of life 

Comes gropingly apace. 
The years of earth's grim strife 

Have softened your face 
And mine. 

39 



Together we sit 

Looking far westward now, 
Your face with love is lit, 

While your dear peaceful brow 
Marks the years. 

Thus we journey so, hand in hand, 
Looking for the ever to be 

In the shadowy land 

That our visions so plainly see. 
In the West. 



NEPTUNE'S HARPER. 

A harper from his cave of stone 

Looking far westward now ; 
He sits like a god on a Titan throne 
Lost in the sea's wild minstrelsy. 

What do the waves of this wide sea 
Fling back from the chords of my lyre ? 

Are they echoes of vast eternity 

That resound from my vibrant wire ? 

Ah ! woe is me ! the sea's refrain 
Is the music of circling spheres, 

Ah ! could I but catch the immortal strain 
That mocks my list'ning ears. 

I am but mortal, woe is me ! 

The soft chant of the ages flown 
Is the song of the restless sea, 

A song that is ever a moan. 

40 



Perchance my eyes are clouded, dim. 
With the aeons that are no more 

I vigil the ocean's horizon limb 

Of its crumbling, dark-browed shore. 

I have listened through all the ages 
To catch the sea's lulling refrain ; 

I have turned the century pages, 
Yet I turned them all in vain. 

My ear is yet too young 

To gather the god notes so weird ; 
Mayhap my lyre's not truly strung. 

Or the notes by time are bleared. 

Then came more clear the song 

Inspired by fingers deft, 
His touch was proud and strong, 

From discord swift bereft. 

His notes with gladness well'd 

From the depths of his mortal soul ; 

The music with rapture s well'd 
As he sped to his astral goal. 

His cold, white hand, his silent lyre. 

Lay lightly on his knee ; 
The gods had granted his desire, 

His minstrel soul was free. 

He sat there then ; he sits there now. 
Like an image of carven stone. 

Ah ! he will sit forever there, I trow, 
Until the sea shall cease to moan. 

41 



WINE BUBBLES. 

Wine bubbles for those who are gay, 
Dregs for the sorrows we have had, 

Let us sip Hfe's wine while we may, 
To-morrow our hearts may be sad. 

Moments are jeweled beads on the wine. 
They sparkle with mischievous mirth, 

Like stars they twinkling shine 
To banish the gloom of this earth. 

Here is to the butterfly gay 
That sips the fragrant flowers, 

To the moments that melt away 
Into summer's indolent hours. 



We will bury the world-worn past 
But live in the joy of to-day, 

Then smile at untimely sorrow — 
Let it pass like a shadow away. 

We will bury the world-worn past 

Within the depths of its infinite night. 

On the shores of oblivion we cast 
The madness that broodings invite. 

Here is to foamy wine bubbles. 

Panaceas for every ill, 
A balm for the morrow's troubles — 

Troubles that earth's phantoms distill. 

42 



SILENCE. 

A mortal stood on the marble pave 

Of a temple quaint and grand, 
His trembling eyes gazed on its nave, 

As he knocked with a faltering hand. 

The priestess of this templed shrine, 

With vestal votive altar vows, 
Her robes entwined with rays divine, 

In solemn silence humbly bows. 
Her acolytes in spotless white, 

With censers waving fume, 
Are kneeling round the central light, 

Of the shadowy full orb'd moon. 

The perfumed air is heavy, 

With the oppression silence flings 

O'er chanceled aisle, and archway. 
And speeds with noiseless wings 

Where chiseled marble sings the sad refrain 
Of Angerona, mute tongued goddess, 

Of ancient Roman fame. 

The mortal looks in wonder 

At the portal's pillared arch, 
And sees the long procession, 

As they slowly countermarch, 
To leave the sacred fire. 

On each alabastered urn. 
Its incense mounting higher, 

Its vestal lamp to burn. 

43 



Alone he stands by the vestal flame 
Of the altar's quenchless fire; 

He breathes aloud the sacred name, 
And his heart's unchanged desire. 



Go ! mortal, 'tis not for thee to know 
The lessons that flow from the gods. 

Drink deeply of Lethe's deepest flow, 
Where Pluto so dismally nods; 

Then seek among the mighty shades, 

That roam Elysian Fields, 
Anaxarchus, who to save his trust, 

Bit oflf his tongue to shield 
The secret that no torture could. 

Nor tyrant make him yield. 
He threw the severed member, 

In Nicocreon's hated face, 
While all Cyprus will remember 

The noblest of his race. 



Seek the servants of old Plancus, 
That encountered every pain. 

But ne'er revealed the secrets, 

Though life's thread was cut in twain. 



Kneel before Athene's statue 
Of molten burnished brass. 

Its tongueless mouth a lesson 
To the thoughtless as they pass. 

44 



Bow down to Harpocrates, 

Egyptians silent god. 
As with moveless marble finger. 

Pressed on each lip of stone. 
He tells us of the secrets 

That should ever be our own. 

Go seek the grave Lycurgus, 
Far famed for gifts of law. 

And he will truly tell thee 
Of this jewel without flaw. 

Then seek the wise Pythagoras, 

Who instilled in youthful minds. 
That five years of studious silence 

Was wisdom's band that binds 
The golden sheaf of knowledge 

And the scattered thoughts of gold. 
Which the ripening frost of winter 

Gathers in the harvest fold. 

Then take thy willing footsteps 

Along the aisles of time. 
Along the starry pathway, 

To the gods' abode divine. 
When thou hast truly worshipped 

At each votive altared shrine. 
And sipped from golden chalice 

Great Jove's immortal wine. 
Drink deeply of the water 

That fills the Persian spring. 
That you may not fill the heavens 

With Icarus* ruined wings. 

45 



The mute unbroken silence, 

That nature ever flings 
O'er her grand and lofty temples, 

And all created things, 
Is the anthem of the spheres 

As they sail in endless space — 
Their strains too grand and lofty. 

For Adam's earth born race. 



THE GRAY SEA WOLF. 

Sea foam gods hooded and cowled, 
Chanting the song that Boreas howled 
Over the dark, turbulent waves, 
Beating the shore where water laves 
The base of each towering fold ; 
Scaling battlements brown and old, 
Hiding in the grot underwold 
The white fangs of the grim weir-wolf. 

The moontide sharpens the ebb fangs 
Of this weir-wolf, whose spray coat hangs 
Shaggy and bright with opals fair; 
His blazing eyes from out his lair 
Burn into the soul of the sea 
Till the chant of the furies three 
Rouse from the aisles of the dark deep 
His fierce cub-wolves that sleep. 

Wolf-cubs that chase the hours away. 
Writhing, lapping, forever at play ; 
Restless cubs from sea caves so deep. 
Why do your hungry vigils keep 

46 



Sharp eyes on the green-ribbed rock? 
Is it only to gnaw and mock 
The crumbHng walls of each cave hall, 
And wait for time to gather all. 



They come in gruesome wolf packs, 
Churning the deep with white foam tracks, 
Their frothy manes bristling and gray, 
Sweeping forever on their wave way. 
Tumbling ever a billowy heap ; 
What would you do? The rock is steep, 
Rugged and high, so bold and bare, 
Would you drag it hence to your lair? 



Their wolf fangs are sharp, their flaming eyes 
Snap with the glow of wing'd fireflies ; 
Their tongues are red as the red glow 
Of Pluton flames that burn below. 
Their hungry howl o'er the moontide 
Echoes from caves where they prowl and hide, 
And wait for the hag furies three 
To rise from the bed of the sea. 



Each wolf's hot tongue vividly laps 
The blood of the sea, where storm caps 
Grow dark, where the thunder's deep roll 
Clangs to the storm-king's hidden goal. 
List! to the wolf-king's phantom howl, 
While the hoot of Nox's fierce stygian owl 
Turns day to cimmerian gloom. 
Echoing the surge's sullen boom. 

47 



THE STONE KING. 

Many millions of years enfold 

Your layers of terraced stone, 
A sentinel old, a sentinel bold. 

Dark eons have silently flown 
Since your rain-washed rocks 

Hurl'd back the Laurentian waves 
Your igneous base received the shocks 

Of Neptune's plunging slaves. 

Looming ice-crown'd in the blue sky, 

Entangling the cloudlets that drift 
With snows, that shrouded lie 

In each weather'd and wrinkled rift ; 
Battlements frowning even to the base, 

With mossy-grown lichens and caves, 
Frettings of lilies, a network of lace. 

Debris left by the vanishing waves. 

Your gray crest is rugged and cold, 

Where dim centuries grimly peep, 
From your sides so crusted with mold ; 

Cataracts silver-sheened leap. 
Through valleys and high-breasted hills, 

Cascades murmuringly pour 
Flushing a thousand laughing rills, 

On your heights so solemn and hoar. 

Your adamant heart, crown'd Stone King, 
Buffets the fierce tempest that raves. 

Backward your glacial fortresses fling 
The foam of the sea's plunging waves. 

48 



Defiant and grim you armored stand, 
O'ertovvering the fretful sea, 

Guarding the crumbHng land 
With your walls of immensity. 



HYMN TO THE SUN-GOD. 

Peep, dawn, open thy gates of pearl. 
Flood the pale sapphire-tinted east 

With reds, and grays, and beryl. 
Let day's full rob'd high priest. 

With chant and sacrificial fire. 

Renew the flame, and incense burn. 

With acolyte and lyre. 
Pray for thy glad return. 

Peep, dawn, into every place; 

Make glad all life, and then, 
With thy gray-veiled face. 

Make glad the hearts of men. 

Shouldst thou not coyly peep 

From out the eastern sky, 
All the flowers would weep 

And earth herself would die. 

Sing thou, O Mother Earth, of morn ; 

Behold thy enrapturing king, 
Else thou wilt weep forlorn, 

A dead forgotten thing. 

49 



Peep on the woodland rills, 
Peep o'er the mountains high, 

Peep on the everlasting hills, 
King of the ethereal sky. 

O, King, from thy full cup of gold 

Richest libations pour, 
Then earth an hundredfold 

Will all thy gifts restore. 

O, great celestial King! 

Adoringly we bow ; 
Let all creation sing 

As we do now. 



BOOKS. 



Friends, in our hours of ease. 
When time seems a laggard, a bore. 
What dear friends so constant as these, 
Ah! who can their pleadings ignore? 
Friends, when life is all wrong. 
And we look on hope with distrust; 
Like the echoes of some sweet song, 
They creep from their cobwebs and dust. 

They peep from their oaken cases. 
So trim in their orderly rows. 
How bright are their titled faces. 
Panaceas, for all harrowing woes. 
We live in a world that is strange, 
Romance, history, philosophy, lore; 
Thus our fancies, like Ariel, range 
O'er time and her vanishing shore. 

50 



Aladdin, Crusoe, Arabian Nights, 
Friends of our youthful days, 
What strange visions, what entrancing delights 
E'er came with their fragrance always. 
Books for youth-shy lover, whose sigh 
Was lost in a romance or dream, 
While his dainty mustache — oh ! my ! 
Was a joke of the cat and of the cream. 

Then manhood, ambitious and bold. 
Sought treasures from science and art; 
Friends that he nourished four-fold, 
Filled the head, but emptied the heart. 
Wisdom came with old age. 
One book was e'er his friend ; 
How carefully he turned page by page, 
And conn'd its sweet truths to the end. 

These friends and companions are mine, 
How truly we always agree ; 
Firm friendships and love thus combine, 
Ah! this is the friendship for mx. 
Books have no faults to find, 
As restless we cast them aside ; 
Always patient, gentle and kind, 
No matter what fate mav betide. 



ETERNITY. 



A realm where time is lost, 
Dread silence reigns supreme 

Where all the aeons holocaust 
Seem but a vanish'd, dream. 

51 



Unseen grand king of mystery. 

Lord of lethean sleep; 
What unrecorded history 

Thy mute Hps dumbly keep. 

Pale discord with her jangling bells 
Ring from time's gray tower ; 

They toll for death a thousand knells 
For evVy fleeting hour. 

The presents that alluring came 
On hope's resplendent wings. 

The pasts, the fleeting fame, 
Are time's forgotten things. 

Eternity, a measureless abyss. 
Where waveless oceans flow ; 

Elysian fields of heavenly bliss, 
Or black realms of torturing woe ; 

Thy hidden crypts conceal 

No dust of mortal clay ; 
No seneschal shall e'er reveal 

The closely guarded way. 

The centuries shall watch and wait 

To usher in the years ; 
They ope the jasper gate 

For all the circling spheres. 

A goal where time is lost, 

A labyrinth of Crete, 
Where all the ages tempest toss'd. 

Die in this maz'd retreat. 

52 



A starless, vast stygian plain, 
Where dark Nox's reapers reap, 

And gather the immortal grain 
In one almighty heap. 

Star-studded door of night, 
Far beyond oblivion's deep, 

The priestess of death's solemn rite 
Shall death's dark secrets keep. 



THE BRIDE OF TIME. 

Thou are Time's empyrean queen. 
Ruler of the star-domed sky ; 

Majestic, cold, serene. 

She holds her court on high. 
Among a maze of stars. 

Hers are all the eternal years. 

Blue-robed, stately dame; 
Queen of wide space's circling spheres. 

She wedded and became 

The bride of aged Time. 

In her calm face behold 

The dead eons' almighty grace. 

With grandeur manifold ; 
No passing ages can unplace 
Her statuesque repose. 

53 



She sexed and tmsexed spheres, 
That ether's cosmic pollen dust 

Might fructify the changing years 
Of each planet's protean crust 
For most strange fashionings. 

Her calm, unwrinkled face 
Is young, yet over old ; 

In her fairy features trace 
That which the eons hold 
Unchangeable and unchanged. 

Forward she wistfully gazed 
When crimson morn awoke ; 

His jeweled sapphires blazed 
When purpling Eros broke 
From the golden palace of the sun. 

Upon her graven tablets gray, 

With great Krono's recording hand, 

She traced the pale milky way 

By drifting stars that dimly spann'd 
Her arching vault. 

A sybil whose begirdled belt 
With zodiac signs is starred ; 

Ancient ages silent melt 

Where Time's gate is barred 
With bolts of mystery. 

O deathless pale Queen, what ages 
Since thy changing empire arose 

By slow and measured stages 
From space and Time's repose 
To form all vaulted bounds. 

54 



THE OLD WOODPILE. 

The woodpile lies just where it did, 

The logs by rank green weeds are hid, 

The rough-hewn gaps are dark and faded, 

The marks of the ax by leaves are shaded ; 

The little mounds, where the little stacks 

Of chips flew from my well-worn ax. 

Are loamy, rich, black mold. 

The worm-worn barks enfold 

Loosely the log's firm trunk 

The cross-grained, stubborn junck 

That resisted my boyish will 

Lies embedded near the old door still. 

The space is narrowed by grass and weeds. 
On the rotting log a wild bird feeds 
On the burrowing worms and bugs, 
The crawling things, the beetles and slugs. 
That have honeycombed bark and tree, 
And left the pile a memory. 

How well I remember the toilsome drudge 
None but a boy can fathom or judge; 
I swung the ax with a youthful vim, 
I chopped in pieces the sappy limb ; 
How thick and how fast the oak chips flew. 
Covered all over with sparkling dew. 
Life was so dear and morn was clear. 
The great sun brought me only cheer ; 
The days flew by so soon, so soon, 
Then came manhood's resplendent noon ; 
Gouty age came creeping along — 
Now I and the pile to the past belong. 

55 



GERTY. 



I am dreaming of Gerty, so true, 

And the flower-grown garden gate ; 
How we drifted love alone knew, 

Rocked by the cold waves of fate. 
How redly the coals' dying glow 

Creeps into my sad heart to-night, 
Softly her footsteps come and go 

In the dim and uncertain light. 

How full was my life's mournful cup, 

Every drop that encrusted the brim 
Was a fountain that welled up 

From misfortune's most dismal whim. 
Loyal Gerty came to me then, 

With a woman's impulsive way, 
Shadows of the dark might have been 

Were banished forever and aye. 



She only drifted back to lay 

Dead roses at dear memory's feet, 
Where firelight shadows play 

With a touch that is soft and sweet. 
Here's a health to the dearest girl, 

To her eyes of heavenly blue, 
To the soft winsome auburn curl. 

To the heart ever warm and true. 



S6 



POOR BROWN HANDS. 

Peeping from this dark satin gown 
Are these hands, so wrinkled and old, 

How pitiful still and brown, 

So clammy, so shrunken and cold. 

Their poor, thankless work is done, 

Forever and ever at rest, 
These hands, that toiled from sun to sun 

Are crossed on her peaceful breast. 

How often these motherly hands 
Rocked the dear babies to sleep, 

Adjusted the infantile bands 
Before the cherubs could creep. 

They soothed every childish tear 
With a gentle, sweet caress, 

Or chided with look severe 
Some token of stubbornness. 

An angel to anxiously keep 

Watch on the low trundle bed. 

Where her treasures in peaceful sleep 
Were tucked 'neath the woolen spread. 

These pale, silent fingers mended 
Rents in the juvenile clothes. 

So often the tired back bended 

To darn holes in the children's hose. 

57 



What vigils and sleepless nights, 

When the children were dangerously ill. 

They turned up the shaded lights 
To give them a powder or pill. 



She made such amusing toys 
Of paper and other things, 

A kite to please the boys, 

Or a dragon with painted wings. 



She taught them to read and write, 
Before the boys went to school, 

As she stitched by the lamp's dim light, 
And explained each confusing rule. 



Then her Doys went ofif to college 
To learn Hebrew, Latin and Greek, 

They stored up useful knowledge, 
And wrote to her once a week. 



How often her heart sadly ached 
To see the dear children grown, 

As she tearfully brewed and baked 
In the homestead all alone. 



The boys have drifted away 

Far from the low-thatched nest ; 

Strangers and neighbors to-day 
Folded these hands on her breast. 



58 



I 



ALAS! PROUD SPAIN! 

What is the sound I hear 

From over the western sea? 
The acclaim is loud and clear 

From God's land of liberty. 

Hurrah ! for the ships that bore 

Down on the Spanish fleets. 
List to big guns' deafening roar ! 

See red, bright, sulphurous sheets 
Belch death from every throat. 

The pride of Spain is wrecked ; 
Her crimson corpses float 

Where gory foam is flecked 
With Spanish blood. 

Her stranded ships no miore 

Shall flaunt with proud disdain 
Her yellow flag o'er our western shore, 

Nor plow our western main. 
*Twas the iron hail and the leaden rain 

That thundered from our fleet ; 
They silenced the guns of proud old Spain 

And overwhelmed her with defeat. 

O'er iron wrecks and ribs of steel 

And barbette's shotless throats — 
O'er each swift stranded keel 

Old Glory proudly floats. 
Again I hear the thunder 

Far over the Spanish main; 
I see vessels rent asunder — 

Mowed down with our iron rain. 

59 



JUNE LOVE. 

Ah ! my Rinaldo, so stately 
And tall, how temptingly sedately 
We strolled 'neath the shade 
Of the elms, and the everglade 
Glistened when the moon 
Coldly peeped ; 'twas in June, 
The flower-scented air 
Was heavy — the roses rare 
Distill'd their perfume, 
All in the month of June. 

Not a word of love was spoken. 
Every look was a truthful token, 
And the tender, hot sighs 
That beamed from his eyes 
Thrilled me with rapture untold. 
How each fluffy lace fold 
Quivered, for the crimson flush 
Deepened, and the rush 
Of my heart-beats were all atune, 
With my Rinaldo, and June. 

How each thrill of delight 
Swept with dreamy might 
Thro' every warm beat of my heart. 
I was nervous ; each little start 
Like a bird fluttered here 
When Rinaldo was near. 
How swiftly flashed the hours 
That chimed from the towers. 
Ah ! they fled all too soon. 
With the flowery month of June. 

60 



How could I say him nay? 

Dear soul. I asked him to stay 

Yet a while. Then he pressed 

A warm kiss to my mouth and confess'd 

How madly he loved me. 

The great, wide sea 

Wafted the kisses I gave — 

I was mad — each wave 

Repeated the elfish rune 

In the month of our happy June. 

He pressed his warm lips 

To mine — the tender sips 

Were wine, to fever our blood. 

How the moon's silver flood 

By the sea gave to me 

The love that was witness'd by three. 

My pulse was athrill 

(With the joy — not an ill) ; 

Only love's sweetest boon 

Drifted into the month of June. 

He pressed a warm kiss 

On my throat. And this, and this, 

As drifted our boat 

With oars all afloat, 

Drifted back with the tide. 

Shall such love abide? 

A deep hush fell. 

And its golden spell 

Was aflame with the rune, 

Of the sea, of our love, and of June. 

6i 



EMBER REVERIES. 

I see in the ember's red glow 

Ghosts, from the vanished years, 
White and pure as December snow 

That melted with April tears. 
Fair young faces that enthrall 

My drowsy brain to-night; 
I see their shadows on the wall 

In the dim and weird light. 

There is Nan, dear girl, that I knew 

With tresses of brown rippling hair, 
Her eyes of cerulean blue 

Peeped from a face wondrous fair. 
The long silken lashes drooped 

Over mischievous, downcast eyes, 
Whose penciled arches enlooped 

The deep blue of a hundred skies. 

I see in each slumbering coal 

The bright face of Beulah so true. 
The smoke from my powhattan bowl 

Made wreaths that circling grew, 
And drifted up, up to the wall. 

How they lazily floated away 
Down through the silent halls, 

To mingle with twilight gray. 

I builded castles so tall 

Their turrets were lost in the sky, 
I saw the proud battlements fall 

That cost me only a sigh. 

62 



The firelight fitful gleams 

From caverns of fiery red, 
Where every dull flicker seems 

A ghost of some pleasure dead. 

I dream of the beautiful mouth 

Whose lips were made to kiss, 
A dark-orbed queen of the South 

Star-eyed and stately Miss, 
Whose glance was a witch to enthrall 

Dreams that wounded my soul. 
I drink this wine to each and all, 

And light my pipe with the last coal. 



DRIFTING. 



Drifting, away to the somewhere 
Where the sea girth's moan 
From caves of stone 
Breaks on the rocks so bare, 
Drifting always somewhere. 

Drifting, where night and gloom 
Ne'er break from the silent space, 
Only a white, dead face 

In the surges sullen boom. 

Drifting away to the stygian gloom. 

Drifting, a mite in the tide 

That sweeps with resistless force, 

Over its waveless course. 
Sullen and silent and wide. 
Drifting away in this awful tide. 

63 



Drifting, away from the past 
Into the future years, 
Drifting with doubt and fears 
Where thousands of wrecks are cast 
That drifted out of the eternal past. 

Drifting in soulful dreams 

Through halls so stately and wide, 
Where footsteps of those who died 
Are only the echoing gleams 
Of fleeting, vanishing dreams. 

Drifting away to the unknown, 
Locked in the arms of time 
Whose soulless ringing chime 
Is the song of aeons flown, 
Drifting away to the unknown. 

Drifting out in the night, 

Drifting away alone, 

The last bird's moan, 
The last bird's flight 
Into the deeper vale of night. 



ISRAEL. 



Where is thy vanished glory, 

Thy men of war so brave. 
Thy commandments sacred, hoary 

That Jehovah thundering gave? 
Where are God's chosen tribes, 

Her patriarchs of old. 
Her Pharisees and Scribes, 

Her vessels of pure gold? 

64 



Where are thy priestly kings 

From David's anointed line? 
Thy psalmist that divinely sings 

With prophesy divine? 
Through all the past dead ages 

David's harp has silent hung, 
Through history's storied pages 

His songs will still be sung. 

Where is Babylon's awful thunder 

When God's voice wrathful spoke, 
When he brake the tower asunder 

With the lightning's deadly stroke? 
He laid man's power low 

And leveled all his pride, 
Man wailed his song of woe 

And cursing God, he died. 

Miriam's lips have spoken, 

Grand prophetess of old, 
By God's holy token 

He will his plans unfold. 
Thy kingdom yet shall rise 

In power and earthly might, 
Where now the jackal hies, 

Where time has left its blight. 

The proud Jerusalem of old 

Shall on these ruins stand. 
With spires of virgin gold 

As Hiram nobly planned. 
Thy temple ruined lies, 

A mass of buried stone. 
Where silence solemn dies 

In wastes that vandals own. 

65 



I SAW A RIPPLE. 

'Twas only a ripple on Time's vast sea. 
Some pulseful throb of years ; 

I wondered what the throb could be 
That puzzled mortal seers. 

Who threw the pebble down 

From the shore of Stygian night, 

From rocks so old and brown 
That crowned Creation's height ? 

The pale sea was stirred 

With the pebble's echoing plash. 
As if some ocean bird 

With glint and feathery flash 

Had broken Time's gray sleep, 
Whose wavelets circling swept 

Ever outwards on the trembling deep ? 
Thus first Life pulsing lept 

From Motion's vibrant hand. 

And this is Life, I said, 
By rainbow arches spanned. 

I looked, and lo ! poor Life had fled. 

How the widening circles grew, 

And rippling, died away, 
With naught that could renew. 

The dream of yesterday. 

66 



STRANDED. 

A dead woman — and can it be? — 
Cast upon this desolate shore, 

Where the rocks stretch out to the sea, 
And the breakers continually roar. 

Dead and stranded out there, 

Nude, forsaken, alone, 
With seaweed in her hair, 

On her lips a suffering moan. 

Why did the sea upheave such prey — 
A victim, whose sculptured form 

Is bejeweled with mist-born spray, 
Brewed by the lowering storm? 

Stranded, O God! on this low beach; 

Her bier the white and cheerless sand. 
Beyond the breakers' neap-tide reach, 

In a distant and foreign land. 

What has this wrecked soul done 

In life's great soulless swirl 
That she, 'neath a cold -rayed sun, 

This beautiful, brown-haired girl, 

Should lie so still and white, 

In the morgue of the heaving sea. 

Where the pale green opalent light 
Foreshadows eternity? 

67 



No wound, no mark, to mar 
The beauty of her angel face. 

Lying there dead and far 

From her home and her natal place. 



Was it a scarlet life she led 

In the haunts of varnished shame, 

Where sweet virtue is sold for bread. 
And fair honor an empty name? 



Was it some broken, blighted heart 

That madly loved in vain? 
Did she play her daz'd part 

In this cold world of greed and gain? 

Some lost love buried here. 

Some faith love that had been untrue, 
That haunt'd this shroudless bier. 

Covered with salt-spray dew? 



Perhaps she pined and sinned. 
And gave her life for pay — 

No name, mark, or paper pinned. 
To tell how she drifted away. 



Whatever her secret may be, 
'Tis lost and stranded here, 

On this lone morgue-like sea, 
With no father or mother near. 

68 



THE CURFEW TOLLS. 

The curfew tolls, and drowsy Day 
Creeps to the purple west ; 

He lays his golden robes away, 
He pins the stars upon his breast. 



The curfew tolls, the fading light 

Grows darker o'er the lea, 
The swift-winged bat, with wavering flight, 

Supplants the honey-laden bee. 

The curfew tolls, gray shadows creep 

From eve with unshod feet, 
Lest they disturb the sun god's sleep. 

Cradled in some nocturn retreat. 

The silent stars, so cold and high, 
Peep from the sky's wide zone ; 

Each little orb, with twinkling eye, 
Guards Dian's spangled throne. 

The curfew tolls, earth's dark nocturn 

Is shrill with strident strains. 
The firefly's lamp, with fitful burn, 

Glows bright, then darkly wanes. 

The flowers, with heads adroop, 
Hang from their swaying stems. 

From glade and dell the brownies troop 
And dance beneath the elms. 

69 



The curfew tolls, the silver moon 
Sails near the red-hued Mars, 

The moonman chants his weird rune 
Amidst the aisles of drifting stars. 



CARMEN. 



Petit Carmen, you smile; 

You are a born coquette ; 
You live, betray, beguile, 

I know not why, and yet, 

I love madly, gladly. 

Your soulful eyes are brown ; 

They have some magic spell — 
Nay, do not frown 

At what I have to tell, 

I love madly, gladly. 

Others perhaps more bold 
Have kiss'd your lips so red, 

Have touch'd each tress of gold 
That crowns your queenly head — 
Yet, I love you madly. 

You are witty, Carmen, witty ; 

Your words have a cute, hidden sting- 
Carmen, have some pity, 

Accept this suitor's ring ; 

Say that you will be mine. 

70 



What loves treacherous shine 
In your dark, impish eyes ! 

Would that the loves were mine, 
And all the mocking sighs 
Were tender and true. 



Have you, my pretty sweet, 
A soul? Some say yes, yes, 

Upon your dainty feet. 
And yet I must confess 
That I love you madly, gladly. 



I know you're not sincere ; 
Too many ardent loves. 

Born of false hope and fear. 
Have soil'd your dainty gloves 
With love's adoring kiss. 



Some day. Carmen, some day, 
Perhaps with keen regret, 

The game of hearts you'll play, 
Then you will sigh and fret 
Because you plead delay. 



Love's rare wine sparkles now 
In your deep, mocking eyes ; 

Some day you'll wonder how 
Time swiftly flies 
To leave its ghosts for you. 

71 



Carmen, whate'er thou hast 
Of beauty's golden charm 

Will not, cannot forever last — 
Time's thin, wrinkled alarm 
Will ring the curtain down. 



Carmen, confess 

That love has touched your heart; 
Perhaps some coy distress 

Has left its poisoned dart 

Within your soul. 



Good-bye, Carmen, good-bye; 

You will never relent. 
Yet you so softly sigh — 

Your head is forward bent 

To hide the tears. 



How pathetic! Each poor token 
That dupes have given you, 

Mementoes of sad hearts broken, 
Which carelessly you strew 
On love's dead grave. 



Mayhap it is a woman's way — 
Perverse, yet loving still ; 

Exacting, willful, gay, 
Jealous of her sweet will, 
Nursed by fancy's whim. 

72 



THE FORTY-NINER'S RETURN. 

Stranger, it has been forty years 
Since I left this growing town ; 

Everything I see appears 

To be remodeled or torn down. 

Where is the shaded street 

Where my old home used to be? 

Every person that I meet 
Seems stranger-like to me. 

I vow things do look queer, 

Everywhere I go 
They ask me what I'm doing here; 

I swear I do not know. 

I was a fool forty-niner, 

I sold everything I had ; 
To become a crazy miner, 

I sold my duds to dad. 

Say, where is the Traveler's Inn, 
Where the old folks used to stay? 

It is a sure tarnation sin 

They have moved the house away. 

They have changed each precious name 

Of lane and village street; 
The names are not the same. 

They have become so obsolete. 

73 



Where is De Lorimer hollow, 
Where I used to hunt the cow? 

Where is the mare I used to follow 
Behind a Moline plow? 

Where are the homespun blouses 
We used to always wear? 

The old-fashioned gable-houses 
That fronted on the square? 

The fields I used to plow 

Are worth their weight in gold. 

I swear I feel just now 
As if I was growing old. 

Everyone is on a rush 

And haven't time to talk ; 
I'm jammed in this 'ere crush 

Till I can scarcely walk. 

If I could see one face 

That I once knew in years gone by. 
Where I could loving trace 

Some kindred or some tie, 

My heart would beat with joy, 

And I would feel again 
The pleasure of the boy 

That lived in Betsy's lane. 

I have traveled for to see 
The place where I was born, 

My elder brothers three, 

With trousers patched and torn. 

74 



Where is the apple tree, 

The rude bench where we sat, 

Where Tom, and Ned, and me. 
Would spin our yarns and chat? 

Where is the locust clump, 

Where the graveyard used to be? 

Excuse this awkward lump, 
That makes a child of me. 

I could sit and talk all day 
Of the things I used to do, 

Those days have passed away, 
And I am boring you. 



WORDS. 



Words, words, the swift wings of the world. 
Downy, dainty, powdered and curled. 
Masking thought with a cunning lie. 
Laughing to hide some smothered sigh. 
Smiling, beguiling, leaving a deep sting. 
Hypocrisy's slaves that cringingly bring 
Sodom's apples that seem so fair. 
Grown in the garden of bitter despair. 

Words, words, were jewels strung 

On the brow of morn, when the world was young, 

Halcyon words of joy and peace 

When grazing flocks with swift increase 

Pastured Arcadian valleys and hills, 

The golden age, when Pandora's dark ills 

Were short sorrows that died in giving birth 

To truth that blessed primordial earth. 

75 



Words, words, now dark venomous things, 
Flitting about on devils' wings, 
Merciless words, far more cruel than death, 
Minions of foul slander's polluting breath, 
Filching from honor her jewels so rare, 
Numbing the heart with fell despair, 
Marring hope, with a scarlet stain. 
Filling the soul with dull, harrowing pain. 

Words, words, what diplomatic things. 
Soulless songs that Pandora sings. 
Making of earth a veritable hell 
Under the bane of the Atean spell. 
Staining the soil with war's red blood. 
Sweeping away in its flush crimson flood 
Kingdoms and empires, races and creeds. 
Sowing for death the dragon's seeds. 

Words, words, that enviously breed 
Discord of race, and difference in creed, 
Filling the earth with cynic doubt. 
Marking for truth a Procrustean route. 
Making religion an ethical theme, 
Whose mystic waters, with Stygian gleam. 
Eternally glide where Charon of old 
Guards Acheron's shores of the underwold. 

Words, words, minions of fate, 
Weaving a dark web for pitiless hate. 
Disloyal slaves that subservient obey 
The master that fritters pale time away, 
Symbols of power, and children of thought, 
The ransom of fools, by wisdom oft sought, 
Wrinkling and smoothing the brow of care, 
Saving the soul by penance and prayer. 

76 



LIFE'S ANTITHESIS. 

We peer across the troubled main, 
Where every joy has its attendant pain — 
For every storm there is some calm, 
For every wound there is a healing balm. 

For every smile there is likewise a tear, 
For every pauper there is also a peer, 
For every love there is a mortal hate, 
Ev'ry courser has his running-mate. 

Some meet with failure, some excel ; 
Some mortals buy, and some contingent sell 
Some have one text, some have another, 
Not found beneath the Bible's cover. 



For every borrower there is a loan, 
For every laugh there is a groan, 
For every eve there is a circling morn ; 
Old age dies, a child is born. 

Each road has its dust, and also has its mud ; 
Each high-bank'd river has its seething flood, 
A deepening channel for one that's dry — 
Thus the short years go glimmering by. 

Each autumn has its winter sear, 

A winding sheet for each dead year; 

Each summer has its verdant spring; 

One lays down the scepter, and another's king. 

77 



Some limp, and some walk straight; 
Some push, while others wait ; 
Some loaf, while others toil ; 
Some sleep, while others burn the oil. 

One-half the world lives on the other half; 
Some sorrow, while some, fickle, laugh; 
Some pay too promptly what they owe. 
While others reap what others sow. 

Some barter what they, toiling, made ; 
Some beat you in a counter-trade; 
Some gain, while others lose ; 
Some walk bare-footed, some wear shoes. 

Some have rags, some have wealth; 
Some have sickness, some have health ; 
Some are doubtful, and some are sure; 
Some are fallen, and some are pure. 

For every life there is a death — 
Man is but a vapor, a passing breath, 
A sum upon some schoolboy's slate, 
A problem for the Master fate. 

A sum not worked by any rule. 
For wisdom is some arrant fool; 
Life is a problem far too deep — 
We play our parts, and then we sleep. 

So passes transient life away, 
While death exacts his usual pay; 
One comes, and one, departing, goes — 
What is life? Who, omniscient, knows? 

78 



ECHOES OF MEMORY. 

Echo, O babbling brook, 

That murmured all day long, 

And glided thro' glade and forest nook, 
Sing to my heart the same dear song, 
Sing, oh sing, as you flow along. 

Echo your flutings, O wild bird. 

Perched on the oaken tree; 

Sing back the past to me 
In the woods where I heard 

The sweet notes of your melody. 

Echo, O mooings that fell 
Like music at dying of day. 
When the lowing kine astray 

Gathered from valley and dell, 

And grazed on their homeward way. 

Echo, O bleating of sheep 

That pastured the old back hill. 
Where the buttercup and daffodil 

Brightened its side so steep. 

The sides that shade the dairy still. 

Echo the impatient neigh 

Of the horses so tired and hot. 
Homeward they went in a jogging trot, 

The horses that plowed all day. 

Rolled in the dust of the barnyard lot. 

79 



Echo, O sounds at evetime, 

When vespers rang softly for prayer. 
Our minds so filled with worldly care 

Heeded the dulcet chime 

That hallowed the evening air. 

Echo again the loved song. 

The song that my mother sang, 
Though each note be a pang, 

Give, O give me the lullaby song, 
The song that my mother sang. 

Repeat, oh repeat, every sweet, low note, 
That lulled your child boy to rest ; 
While the drowsy head on your breast 

In dreamland's rudderless boat 
Drifted away to its haven of rest. 



WE WILL DRINK. 

We will drink to the god that gave 
Grapes to the fruitful vine ; 

To Silenus, wine-bibbing knave, 
Who drowned his sorrows in wine. 

We will drink to comrades so true, 
Around this convivial board. 

Who recklessly scatter and strew 
The moments that penitents hoard. 



So 



We will drink to every whim on earth 
That bubbled since time began, 

To the rollicking, laughing mirth, 
That lightens the labor of man. 

Drink to the moments that have been ; 

Drink to the moments that are ; 
That limit the wisdom of men, 

And oft furrow the brow with care. 

We will drink to life's horoscope, 
That cold fate like a demon mars ; 

We will drink to the stout anchor of hope 
That drags in an ocean of stars. 

We will drink to the gnome Despair 
That flutters round sorrow's pale flame, 

Drawn by the feverish glare 

That makes joy a deluding name. 

We will drink to the gray lethian brink 
That shadows the red fading west. 

To the suns that majestically sink, 
O'er the world's procrustean breast. 

We will drink to the birth of man ; 

We will drink with a flowing bowl 
To life that is only a span, 

To Death and his mystical goal. 

We will drink to time's winged slave 

That hurries us along too fast 
Into the narrow, silent grave. 

Into the eternal, relentless past. 

8i 



We will drink to those that come next 
When each comrade has passed away, 

Perhaps in their turn perplexed 

At life's wine, with its froth and spray. 



THE BROKEN PITCHER. 

Down near a sparkling spring 

Some china pieces lay. 
Remnants of a broken thing 

Molded from potters' clay. 
Too often it went to the well 

Shaded by elm and oak, 
No one living can tell 

How the olden pitcher broke. 

Perhaps some ragged boy 

Was careless and pranced along, 
Filled with an urchin's joy 

That broke from his lips in song. 
Mayhap, the song was hushed 

As the pitcher fell with a crash, 
Swift from the well he rushed 

Heedless, thoughtless and rash. 

Perhaps some rough brown hand 

Let the dear old pitcher fall, 
As it jarred the shaky stand 

By the gray old weathered wall. 
Hard, rough hands of toil 

That carried the pitcher to fill, 
Hands begrimed with soil, 

That washed in the gurgling rill. 

82 



Some school girl tripped perhaps 

On the stones around the well, 
That drifted from hillside gaps 

That shaded the rock-lined dell. 
Perchance some trickling tear 

Saddened her youthful face, 
Blanched with a culprit's fear, 

As she fled from the trysting place. 

Was it love's confusing daze, 

That fluttered her willing heart, 
Or a lover's ardent ways 

That made her flush and start ? 
Was she under the golden spell 

Of love's first dawning dream. 
Only the pieces can tell 

As they lie in the crystal stream? 

And never more shall time 

Mend all the scattered parts 
Patched with ^gg and lime ; 

Or mend the broken hearts 
That erstwhile famished drank 

From the pitcher's cavern bowl, 
Or mend the tired lives that sank 

In time's uncertain goal. 

There the pieces lie 

Banded with blue and gold, 
Peeping up to the smiling sky 

Half covered with loamy mould. 
Too often it went to the well 

As the scattered pieces show, 
But how or when it fell 

No mortal seems to know. 

83 



THE SWEET FACE AT THE DOOR. 

I remember, I remember, 

The smiling angel face 
That met me at the door, 

With all its kindly, beaming grace. 
How it cheered the heavy heart 

Of a toil-worn weary clerk. 
Who, like some galley slave. 

Bent to his thankless work. 

I remember, I remember. 

How gracefully she stood 
Watching, waiting, peering. 

Without a wrap or hood. 
Her face all in a glow. 

Wreathed with a thought supreme. 
So sweet, so tender and so true, 

She was an angel dream. 

I remember, I remember. 

How winsome was her glee, 
When her soft, dimpled hand 

Brushed the snow from me. 
'Twas in cold December, 

So many years ago — 
How well I remember 

That day of jain and snow. 

I remember, I remember, 

My dear heart, when you came 

Like some priceless treasure. 
That hath no miser's name. 

84 



How many years have fled 

Since you waited for me there — 

All those sweet years are dead, 
And silver threads my hair. 

I remember, I remember, 

Ah ! bless me, what a day. 
When all the empty space 

Chided mem'ry's sweet delay — 
No face at the window, 

No bright face at the door — 
Sad, ah ! sad and dreary 

Will my heart be evermore. 

I remember, I remember. 

Ah! can I e'er forget? 
Your form and face, so fair, 

Linger in my memory yet. 
I see her at the door. 

With a welcome up there for me- 
Beyond the distant shore, 

In God's eternity. 



PIONEER GRAVES. 

What low green graves are these; 

What rude forefathers sleep 
Under these forest trees 

That crown this jutting steep? 

85 



No headboards mark these mounds, 
To tell their moss-grown tale ; 

No jarring vagrant sounds 
Intrude upon this vale. 

Who were they? and what did they do 

In this poor ephemeral life? 
Did they sweet blessings strew? 

Or were they harbingers of strife ? 

Were they bold pioneers 

That builded cabins rude ; 
Hardy, bronzed mountaineers 

In this vast solitude? 

Were they a sterner race, 

The redman's hated foe, 
Who occupied this place 

So many moons ago? 

These rich, great western lands, 
Where the long rifle's deadly crack 

In the trapper's practiced hands 
Blazed civilization's track. 

Calmly they sleep and well ; 

No headboard's faded name. 
No moss-grown stone, to tell 

Who settled this wild claim. 

Pale death has laid them low ; 

Only the wild bird's song, 
With ever its warbling flow. 

And the river that brawls along. 

86 



WANTED— A FRIEND. 

This "ad." to your paper I send, 
Perchance some answers I will get. 

Oh for a grand, noble friend, 

Who is not, like a tenant, *'to let." 

I will wait for a day, or a week, 
The answers that will come to me ; 

The friend that my impulses seek 
Will a Damon or Pythias be. 

Some have answered, some called, 
The terms are exacting, they say ; 

Some I have black-balled, 

While others object to my way. 

Some, mere summer-day friends. 

That shrunk from the dark storms of life, 
Their rainbow of promise, whose ends 

Cut like the edge of a knife. 

Some were so human, and so weak. 
True friendship was only a name, 

A cloud-riven, shivering streak. 

That scorched my heart with its flame. 

Some came and promised too much, 
They bowed and bended too low ; 

My soul was wounded with such ; 
I told them so plainly, no ! no ! 

87 



The sign is still over the door, 
The place is neglected and old, 

There is dust on the carpetless floor, 
And the walls are spotted with mold. 



Friends were, alas ! so rare, 

The "ad." never paid me a cent; 

I have still a corner to spare 

That is vacant, and still for rent. 



Some dear tenant come in 

And look at the room set apart. 

Then the price will be due and begin 
When I send you the key to my heart. 



TO JUNIUS L. HEMPSTEAD. 

In reply to your "ad." of September the first, 
Where you mention the want of a "friend," 

Will you listen a while, and perchance 'twill beguile 
A dull moment, and happiness lend. 



You are asking for a treasure 

Which comes straight from heaven's store; 
'Tis a pearl of untold value, 

Found but rarely on life's shore. 

88 



Could I steal into that chamber, 
"Carpetless," "neglected," "cold," 

Where the dingy, dust-stained sign hangs. 
And the words "To let" are told. 

Maybe I could coax a sunbeam 
From some golden cloud above, 

That would bathe your bleak, cold chamber 
With its pure, warm ray of love. 

From the walls the "mold" would vanish 

Like the mist before the sun ; 
In its place hang gilded pictures. 

Scenes of joyous days to come. 

Should you find this "pearl" you're seeking, 
Guard it as you would your soul. 

For its own intrinsic value 

Is worth more than millions told. 

Lucre cannot buy your treasure; 

Fame may fail to win a smile ; 
From ambition's height still wander, 

By your side to rest the while. 

Marvel not the would-be tenants 
Failed to suit the landlord queer; 

I like others might be "black-balled," 
If I hope, I likewise fear. 

Yet, someone will one day enter; 

Fill with light that lone room dark, 
And, according as the "ad." reads, 

Claim the "key" of someone's heart, 

89 



ONLY A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER. 

Press these shriveled hands, 

Wipe the death dew from my brow. 
The Master's sweet command 

Comes faintly to me now. 
My soldier's duty's done, 

I've laid my gun away ; 
For Jim, my oldest son, 

'Twill recall another day. 

When the muskets' flashing rattle 

And the cannons' bursting shots 
Rolled down the line of battle ; 

When the wounded laid on cots, 
Moaning with a feverish pain, 

Mangled, dead and dying, 
Where the deadly, leaden rain 

Through the hurtling air was flying. 

Tell him of the bugle call 

That formed the wavering lines, 
How I saw my comrades fall 

When they sprung the dastard mines ; 
Tell him how a comrade's hand 

Oft parried some quick blow, 
As we made a gallant stand 

And faced the charging foe. 

Tell him how I slaked the thirst 
Of a comrade's parched throat. 

Where shrapnel fiercely burst 
By the barbette's guarded moat ; 

90 



How I drove a cannon rammer 
To mark the hallowed spot, 

With my musket for a hammer — 
Twas there that Ned was shot. 



How oft I knelt beside 

Some dying comrade true, 
And with these hands untied 

Some package bound with blue, 
Some keepsake of a mother, 

Perhaps some sister dear, 
A father or a brother 

That fell within the year. 

Somehow I feel neglected here — 

I am a relic of the past — 
But the end is almost near, 

This roll call is my last. 
Why, comrades ! these are tears ! 

Do not weep for me ; 
From these thankless years 

My soul will soon be free. 



Life's muffled drum is beating 

My pulses' last tattoo. 
And with this breath so fleeting 

I say to life adieu ! 
Tread softly ! 'tis a soldier dead, 

A warrior now at rest ; 
Place flowers at the hero's head. 

And lilies on his breast. 

91 



CONTEMPLATION. 

An aged god, with scythe and glass, 
Entered the Temple of Fame ; 

"Who will gainsay me, if I pass ? 

I am the king, and Saturn is my name. 

"No footfall sounded in the nave 

As he moved through the fretted aisles, 

And stole along the mosaic pave 
Between alcoves and peristyles. 

"Ah ! fame hath her alluring charms, 

That dazzle wooing slaves, 
Outstretched her sculptured arms. 

Over chanceled aisles and naves. 

"Here are pale, emblazoned crests. 
With knightly feats of arms; 

Heralds of their eternal rests, 
No clarion's shrill alarms 

"Will break their dead repose, 

No altared incense to burn, 
No steel-clad, haughty foes 

Will valor's gauntlet spurn. 

"I touch it thus, and crumbling dust 
Shall mock the sculptor's skill ; 

The lance, the shield shall rust. 
Because it is my will. 

93 



**Entomb'd poets, with thoughts of fire, 

Lie in these marble beds ; 
Hush'd is the minstrel's lyre. 

That wreaths their lowly heads. 

"Great soldiers, whose immortal deeds 

Outlive their transient years, 
See how the mold and weeds 

Have sooth'd a nation's tears. 

"Here lies a master of the law ; 

Was he at all times just? 
Was there no bias'd flaw? 

And oracles could trust? 

"Poor little mortal dust, 

That breath'd awhile, and then 

Laid down in gloom and rust — 
And these were earth's great men? 

"Soon, soon shall fell decay 

Stalk through each sculptur'd aisle 

And ghostly shadows play 
Upon this ruined pile. 

"I place my seal just here 

On this granite weathering dew ; 

I will come again another year. 

When gnawing mold has eaten through. 

"Thus, thus this mortal dust I blow 

To heaven's freest wind ; 
So long as the seasons come and go 

Will I leave my sear track behind." 

93 



FAITH. 

Faith, with uplifted face. 
Transfigured, glorified, 

By God's sustaining grace 
Thus is deified. 

Faith lifts the doubting soul 
From earth to realms above. 

Where stars eternal roll. 
Where God is truly love. 

More faith in life's great plans 
Beset by doubts and fears, 

God's rainbow circling spans 
Hope's tide of drifting years. 

More faith in things unseen, 
That we may upright walk. 

This life is one immortal dream 
That only doubt can balk. 

Faith lives beyond the tomb 
When mortal man is dust ; 

It brightens the eternal gloom — 
This childlike, steadfast trust. 

Faith folds her tired hands 
It rocks man's soul to sleep, 

It wafts his soul beyond the skies 
Where mortals do not weep. 

Faith folds her tired hands 
Across her peaceful breast ; 

An angel silent stands 
To guard her mortal rest. 

94 



Faith pleads with wayward hearts. 
Her presence hallows prayer, 

Like incense it imparts 
A solace for each care. 

Faith leads with kindly light 

Through darkness and through tears, 
She warns us of the night, 

And calms our mundane fears. 

Faith gently, coyly pleads 
That we may anchor where 

The beacon brightly leads 
To the harbor over there. 

Faith makes us brave and strong, 

With armor buckled true; 
Then man can do no wrong 

Though doubt and sin pursue. 



THE TRUSTS. 



Grim Hydra, whose power is wealth 

You crush in your titanic coil, 
And gather, with cunning and stealth, 

The harvests of forests and soil. 
You girdle with strong iron bands 

Fallow and field, woodland and hill ; 
The rich products of many lands, 

Are gathered within your till. 

95 



Your bonds, your profits and your stocks 

Are freed from a national tax. 
The weak votes that you buy in blocks 

Are grimly and well proven facts; 
You bribe with a liberal purse. 

Yet grudge the workman his pay ; 
For justice you give him a curse, 

And you rule with a tyrant's sway. 

What are the few paltry lives 

That toil in your mines and big mills. 
They cluster like bees in their hives 

And die of contagion's dire ills. 
Do the hard brown hands touch your heart. 

While you rest in comfort. and ease; 
Do you heed the sad tears that start, 

When they plead on their trembling knees 

For the rich man's proverbial crumb 

That falls from an epicure's meal ? 
Why are your lips forever dumb ? 

Does the blood in your heart congeal ? 
Does poor pity cry out in vain 

As it asks for a stale morsel of bread? 
Do you give from your ill-gotten gain? 

Is every feeling of manhood dead ? 



ONE BY ONE. 



One by one youth's bright woof is spun 
From the threads of the morning's gold. 

How they glow in the splendid sun 
Bejeweled in every fold. 

96 



The woven threads are taut and strong. 
Woven by Hope's deft hand, 

Love is a dream, Life is a song, 
Over all is the rainbow band. 



One by one we mark out a route 

With dangers thickly strown. 
Like some well-trained scout 

We tread the wilds alone. 
O'er cautious and yet bold 

On unknown paths we tread, 
In forests grim and old 

Where every sound is dead. 

One by one we drop worldly cares 

Along Life's thorny way, 
Age, our servant, gently prepares 

Our burden for each day. 
He dulls the fires of youth. 

Desires so empty, vain ; 
Shows us the way to truth 

Through paths of harrowing pain. 

One by one all alone we tread 

Life's wine-press filled with woes. 
One by one we follow the dead 

Where Death's cold river flows ; 
On its dread banks we stand 

And shiver while we wait, 
Though Canaan's happy land 

Open wide its pearly gate, 

97 



One by one the gray shadows lie 

Towards the fading West, 
Adown the glowing sky, 

Across the crimson breast 
Of fleeting, dying day, 

Embanked in amber array 
For one brief hour they stay. 

Then grayly melt away. 

One by one with trembling knocks 

We stand at Death's wide door, 
Whose studded bolts and locks 

Guard the eternal evermore. 
Death's seneschal with iron key. 

And lamp that palely burns ; 
He opens wide the door for thee 

Then to his post returns. 



FATE IS A FLOWER. 

Fate is a fadeless flower 

That no seasons can ever change ; 
It blooms with God's silent power, 

This flower of flowers so strange. 

It grows in a nameless garden, 
In a land of dark despair ; 

Its wild petals tint and harden 
In death's sunless stygian air. 

It is a dark, baneful lily 

That the Parcae grimly sow, 

Where the soil is bleak and hilly, 
Where no other flowers grow. 

98 



Its Medusa-visaged smile 
Is born of night and gloom, 

Its lethean narcots beguile 
Pale victims to their doom. 

Each storm-blown sculptured petal 

Is an epitaph for deeds ; 
Its stamens of polished metal 

Fill the earth with iron seeds. 

Its phantasmagorial light, 

So steady, lambent, chilling, cold, 
Is for the moths of silent night 

That spikelets seize and hold. 

No mortal power can change 
This orchid's baneful bloom 

That gods with Fate arrange 
To make this world a tomb. 

Dragons guard this immortal glade. 
Their chains, corroding, clank. 

Yet a thousand aeons fade 
And years grow musty, rank. 

Still, these flowers of dismal fate 
Bloom with their noxious breath 

Before the dark, hing'd gate 
Of sorrow, sin and death. 



AUTUMN'S BROWN-ROBED QUEEN. 

This stately brown-ey'd maid 
Comes slowly from the shade 
Through valley, mead and glade 
For autumn's masquerade. 

l.aFG. 99 



Her lips are red as red can be, 

Kiss'd by the zephyr king ; 
'Tis autumn's jubilee 

The tripping measures ring 
With sighing melody. 

Why does autumn, with her oriflamme, 
Shake her dead jewels in the air? 

Is she some kirtled dame, 
With rubies in her hair, 

That comes with sad acclaim, 

Through summer's ivied gate, . 

All sparkling with the dews, 
To claim her proud estate. 

And change the em'rald hues 
To colors more sedate? 

The leaves fall rustling down 
With autumn's crimson wiles ; 

She claims her russet crown 
With a courtier's winning smiles 

Or a tyrant's low'ring frown. 

She weaves her robe of state 
With a thousand Tyrian dyes ; 

Why should chill winter wait 
To claim the jewel prize 

From autumn's dead estate? 

Dame Nature grandly weaves 
Autumn's red royal shroud; 

She limns the reaper's sheaves 
With a brown rustling cloud 

Of fallen leaves. 

100 



THOUGHT'S EMPIRE. 

Who can fathom the bounds 

Of this empire distant and vast? 

The stars on their solemn rounds 
Measure the eternal past. 

Knowing, and yet unknown, 
Master of the great human race. 

From its fortress of thin-walled bone 
It rules all time and space. 

From its lock-barred and bolted stronghold, 
With grand thought it shatters the earth, 

Delves in earth's crust for gold. 
Under the planet's girth. 

The whirr of steam engines and mills, 

The spindles' droning play, 
The forges, the dredges, and the drill 

Obey its mechanical sway. 

It conceives, and the deft, cunning hand 

Measures uttermost space. 
The sky, the sea, the land 

Are its by creative grace. 

No shackles bind its limbs ; 

Like Ariel, it wanders free. 
On light's swift wings it skims 

To the farthest star-zoned sea! 

lOI 



GOD HAS NO CREEDS. 

Our God has no conflicting creeds 
By puny mortals class'd, 
He judges man by deeds 
And not by creeds or caste, 
Terms meaningless to Him 
Who sits on Heaven's throne, 
Where aeons vast and dim 
Belong to Him alone. 

His kingdom has no bounds. 
Each system has its groove ; 
On their eternal rounds 
The stars forever move; 
Dials of fleeting time 
How orderly obey 
The will of One sublime 
Who made the milky way. 

God's great almighty hand 
Fashioned each living thing ; 
The sea, the sky, the land, 
Hosannas grateful sing. 
He holds no narrow creeds 
When he fills mother earth 
With vivifying seeds 
That death may hasten birth. 

The song bird pipes his lay 
Beside some shaded rill ; 
He sings the livelong day 
His noisy, gladsome trill. 

102 



He asks not for a reason why 
The stars forever glow, 
The rippling brooks near by 
With gentle murmur flow. 

The eagle wings the sky 
And gazes on the sun, 
He asks not for a reason why 
The seasons changeless run. 
He is no proselyte ! 
Content he soars in space 
Pois'd in his dizzy height 
Above his nesting place. 

Creation's protean hand 
Is God's eternal law. 
In wisdom nobly plann'd 
Without a single flaw. 
God rules all time and space. 
One God, one law divine 
That mortals humbly trace 
In stars that vastward shine. 

God knows our humble needs, 
Why should we selfish pray ? 
Or mock with mortal creeds 
The God who molded clay ? 
He fashioned mind and soul 
From some primordial cell. 
That our senses may control 
Bright Reason's citadel. 

Is God more just than thou 
Who kneelst in selfish prayer. 
Perchance to seal some vow 
Born of this earth's despair ? 
103 



Prayer means naught unless 
'Tis born of God-like deeds, 
Though mortal man confess 
A thousand narrow creeds. 



EMOTIONS. 

Hidden away from human eyes 
There is within the soul 
A spring, whose crystal bowl 

Is gemm'd with tears and sighs, 
That drift from time's gray goal. 

The mem'ry of one sweet, low word 
Will drift from out the past: 
Emotion's limpid depths o'ercast 

By feeling gently stirred. 

Will gather recollections fast. 

Perhaps some soft refrain 

Will murmur from this spring, 
And fondly, dearly, cling 

To dreamy moments that enchain 
The chords that angels sing. 

Ofttimes some kindly deed 

Will throb through pulse and vein, 
To ease some half-forgotten pain. 

Or stay some mortal creed, 
That hope may breathe again. 

Perchance some trifling thing. 
Unprized by careless mankind. 
Will leave a thought behind 

To bubble from this spring. 
And heartward soothing wind. 
104 



LAUGH! LAUGH! 

Laugh, laugh as well you may, 
A hearty laugh will drive away 
The shadow of depressing woe 
That chills the spirit's rippHng flow. 

A hearty laugh will always win ; 
Old Momus and mankind are kin. 
The world abhors a solemn face 
That seems forever out of place. 

Do not for gracious sake grow old, 
Don't let your heart be morbid cold. 
Laugh at life with never a sigh 
To dim the soul when death is nigh. 

Do not brood o'er life's tempestuous sea 
Whose waves are wafting home to thee 
The solace of a smile that lives 
In the years that calm contentment gives. 

Laugh, laugh, laugh as the days go by. 
Look at fate with a steadfast eye, 
Be master of the hours that flow 
Into the years that come and go. 

Laugh, laugh, laugh at the fool world's way, 
Laugh, laugh, for laughing pays, 
A frown is sorrow's guide to lure 
Into the depths where the pay is sure. 

105 



AN ANCIENT DEATH MASK. 

What mask is this, a human face, 
Stony reHc of some Grecian race? 
What were the dreamings of the mind 
That left this mystic mold behind? 

Was it deception's cringing mask ? 
Did devils smiling bask. 
Charming God's candor for the while 
With serpents' cunning guile ? 

What thoughts found here a nest, 
Where silence, with antique unrest. 
Woke from the confines of this brain 
To make a holocaust of pain ? 

Did it o'erturn some gilded throne 
With plot and gold from Afric's zone? 
Or flatter with a courtier's skill, 
Making power subservient to its will ? 

Did it make enemies of friends 
To serve some base, malicious ends ? 
Or mar the peace of priest or state, 
Then leave them to the throes of hate ? 

Did mad ambition and thirst for power 
Man battlement or beleaguer'd tower? 
Did legions do your bidding then 
To make dread war, a slaughter-pen ? 

io6 



Did senates with misgivings quake, 
And delphic hope with fear forsake 
Fair Virtue, in imperial Rome, 
To desecrate the penates of home ? 

Did it oft strut upon the mimic boards, 
Pleasing Sensation's hungry hordes, 
And make some timely statecraft jest 
Of him who wore the purple on his breast? 

Did it weave the assassin's web. 
Crimsoning life's mysterious ebb 
With dagger-thrust, and murd'rous skill, 
Forcing tribunes with an iron will ? 

Naught can we question lips of stone. 
Mute as the ages farward flown, 
Recalling from these rude ruins vast 
Visions of the immortal past. 



TEMPTATION. 



I. 

Temptation, first born child of earth 

That caused an Adam's fall. 
What was primordial virtue worth? 

When Satan's scarlet pall 
Made Time a loyal slave 

For Death, whose scythe and glass 
Made all the earth a grave 

Dark portal of the Avernean pass. 

107 



IL 



Temptation is an Eden's snake, 

Whose scintillating eyes 
Can ever dazzling make 

A jewel, with entrancing dyes 
Mesmeric power to convey 

A charm that swift enthralls 
Its unsuspecting prey 

That shudderingly, helpless falls. 

III. 

Tempation, like a noxious weed, 

It cumbers fertile ground 
And scatters tares, and seed 

Like thistle shafts around, 
Filling all the ripening hours 

With pleasures that distil 
In virtues fair, and modest bowers, 

Poisons for man's conscious will. 



IV. 

Temptation has its liveried slaves 

That drugged allegiance owe 
To appetite, that sordid craves 

The cup that leads to woe. 
And with a Circe's fatal charms 

Makes swine of those that still 
Linger in her outstretched arms 

That fold to kiss and kill. 

io8 



THE WITCH'S CAULDRON. 

I. 

I am tHe wrinkrd witch of time, 

Into my cauldron, sulphurous, and deep, 

All of the odds and ends of crime. 
With tireless hands I sweep. 

II. 

With Pluto's dread fagots I boil. 
The water of Stygia's dark stream. 

How the flames twist and coil, 

How brightly the live embers gleam. 

III. 

Like serpents of Erinnyes hair, 

The hot flames dart and roll 
Heating my cauldron of despair. 

Licking its flame worn bowl. 

IV. 

I toss into my cauldron hot, 

The sins of a thousand ages. 
I assort them lot by lot. 

And label them devil's wages. 

V. 

I sweep from eternity's floor 

The dust of ages past, 
Into my broth forever more, 

The siftings of earth's sin I cast. 

109 



VI. 

With murder, I stir and I mix, 
Ingredients of love and hate ; 

I season the water of Styx, 
With the soulless sauce of fate. 

VII. 

I stir in dead men's bones. 

Their legs, and arms, and skulls ; 

I gloat over the shrieks and groans, 
And the torture that never lulls. 

VIII. 

What care I for torment and woe, 

I have a heart of stone ; 
Into my titanic cauldron they go. 

When death shall claim his own. 



THE COUNTRY GIRL. 

I. 

What makes this girl so sweet, 

Not dainty hands, or baby feet, 

Not arching brow, or rosebud lip. 

No rounded arm, or swelling hip, 

Nor eyes that shine like midnight stars, 

As she stands at eve, by the pasture bars. 

XL 

She is no flaunting fashion plate. 
No dream that moderns oft create, 

no 



No scissored art, or modiste's ways, 
No slender waist, nor wasp like stays. 
No moulded outline, or measuring tape, 
Can mar the beauty of her Grecian shape. 

III. 

Her heart's a home where sweet content 
Is thankful for God's mercies sent. 
Nothing she covets, nor is envy's slave. 
The heritage her father gave 
She husbands with a pedant's will. 
Hence she pays no prescription bill. 

IV. 

Up with the morn, in bed at eve, 
She is nature's child, to have and receive 
Her measure full of strength and health. 
Caring naught for beaux, and wealth. 
Singing her song, the young glad song, 
Extolling virtue, and eschewing wrong. 

V. 

Modest and sweet, she seems, 
A woodland nymph, by mountain streams. 
Her heart untrammeled by earthly care ; 
What sculptured venus can ere compare 
To this sylvan maid whose song bird trills 
Waken the echoes of the gurgling rills. 

VI. 

She smiles no smile of dark deceit. 
Her glad blue eyes like angels greet, 

III 



Each golden morn, — when morrows break 
Sweet song birds from their nests awake 
To trill their untutored lays 
For the winsome girl, that is young always. 



THE SLANDERER. 

He wears thro' life deception's masque, 
Where mortal lies, like devils bask. 
False the heart, and dark the smile. 
That covers truth with hidden guile. 
He has alas! the slanderer's tongue, 
How can one tell, when one is stung. 
This slimy dragon from his lair 
Poisons the purest, sweetest air. 
As forth he squirms, with loathsome coil, 
With asp-like tongue, to hiss, despoil. 
Hiding his venom in its sheath. 
Distilling sorrow, shame, and death. 
This brazen thing, that satans own. 
Has an angel's smile, and a heart of stone. 



WEAVE, OLD DAME. 

L 

Weave ! weave a shirt, O loom, 
All for the Parcaes crumbling tomb. 
Weave, weave, with Time's distaff, 
That each mortal's epitaph 
Shall mark the marble spot 
Where man is, and man is not. 

112 



, 



II. 

Weave me a thread of woe ; 

Be quick ! old Dame ! sew, sew ; 

Bend to your fatal task ; 

When this is done, I ask 

For the centaur's deft skill 

That weaves, but only weaves to kill. 

III. 

Whirl, whirl, without, within, 
The vestments of each mortal sin 
Are woven of alluring threads ; 
Full are the spindle heads 
Of what this old dame wove. 
As swift the flying wheel she drove. 

IV. 

Arrange the patterns well. Old Dame, 
With threads that twisting came 
From Pluto's roaring fire. 
Then bind with mad desire 
The seams that so securely hold 
The fabric wrought of sordid gold. 

V. 

Weave, weave, weave for the neck ; 

Don't consider the fatal wreck, 

Or the white fleece, while the wool is shorn, 

Weave for the millions yet unborn ; 

The halt, the blind, the weak, the lame, 

Weave for them all. Old Stately Dame. 

113 



VI. 

Weave, weave, each fadeless sleeve; 
What care you if mortals grieve? 
Your shirt is tautly spun. 
Your work is fully done, 
O, minion of relentless woe, 
Weaving ever the patterns so. 



THERE IS A LINE. 

I. 

There is a mystic measured line 
Outmark'd by foreordain'd design, 
'Tis here, 'tis there, and farward hence 
Fixed by vast Omnipotence, 
Wherein we doubting dimly trace 
The awful bounds of time and space. 
Its zigzag course sadly portend 
A bright beginning or a fatal end. 

11. 

How vast its limits, thus all spheres 
Grow dim and musty with the years ; 
We feel remotely spaced afar 
Protean life that holds each star 
Spellbound within its throbbing clasp. 
No mortal mind can know or grasp. 
Or see the wisdom of the Godhead One 
Who gave to earth His only Son. 

114 



in. 

A shifting line, as broad as space, 
Yet narrow as man's resting place ; 
It marks the kingdoms of this earth 
For swift-winged death, for puny birth, 
A holocaust of dead mile stones, 
Dividing life into a thousand zones, 
Each with creative will full rare, 
Product of sun and vital air. 
Odd creeping, crawling, swimming things. 
With legs, with feet, with fins, with wings. 
All evolv'd from one law divine, 
A law, the acme of design. 

IV. 

We peer across, yet peer in vain ; 

Fleet life flows never back again ; 

Its shadow falls from east to west, 

Man lingers still, yet sighs to rest. 

Builds for bright, alluring hope 

Some star-far limned horoscope. 

A promise for some future year. 

Then like some hoary headed seer 

He foretells with faith's conjectural mind. 

Has eyes to see all things and yet is blind. 

V. 

Who passes o'er this line of fate 
Enters Saturn's dark-hinged gate. 
Nor looks he sideward, nor yet back 
To see the beaten measured track. 
Along which he faltering came, 
So weak, so halting and so lame. 

115 



WHO WOULD BARTER— 



One laugh for an ocean of tears, 

One sorrow for happiness true, 
One sigh for the sweet smile that cheers 

The heart when sadness comes weeping to you. 

II. 

A smile for an age-wrinkling frown, 

A bright face for one that is sad ; 
Content for a king's golden crown, 

A good penny for one that's bad. 

III. 

A drug for the relish of health, 

A song for a driveling moan; 
Or peace for a Vanderbilt's wealth, 

Or the millions that such men own. 

IV. 

Wheat for the winnow'd chaff, 

A sweet rose for a hidden thorn ; 
A groan for a light-hearted laugh 

That greets the sunshine of morn. 

V. 

Fine gold for its unmined dross, 

The pure for the worldly impure ; 
Sure gain for misfortune's sad loss, 

Fickle chance for that that is sure. 

ii6 



VI. 

A diamond for a pasty stone, 

Rubies for false-colored gems ; 
A farthing that is all your own 

For the false glitter of wealth's diadems. 

VII. 

A bright day for a dismal night, 
Spun on sorrow's inhuman loom ; 

A brave heart that's happy and light. 
For one that is shrouded in gloom. 

VIII. 

A big heart that is always brave, 
For a coward's that lurks and lags ; 

A soul that rides every wave, 

For a weak will that doubting fags. 

IX. 

A penny's worth of wholesome glee, 
For the miser's oft-counted pounds ; 

A grand soul from malice free, 

For a tongue that smarting wounds. 



LET THERE BE LIGHT. 

I. 

God said. Let there be light : 

Great pulsing vapors parted as a vail ; 
Out from heaven's star-gemmed night 

There burst a sun whose splendid trail 

117 



Hemm'd bordering spheres that spun 

And circl'd silvery pale 
Around the glowing sun. 



11. 



Our mother Eve, the earth 

Looked on Adam's sun-god face. 
Then from her womb-like girth 

Sprang an immortal race. 
Amidst paradise celestial vast 

They lov'd, and poor, dependent Eve, 
Child of an antedated past. 

Courted Adam, and conceived; 
Her broad breasts rich with pap, 

Nurs'd the dark children of each glen ; 
Her wide-zon'd primodial lap 

Cradl'd the fierce wild sons of men. 



HI. 

Love-born Eve then wifely obeyed 

God's edict to increase and multiply, 
Nor faltered she, or aught delayed, 

To fashion, shape, and vivify. 
Protean life within the sea, on land 

God's creative genius everywhere 
Ordained that species should expand, 

His fruitful earth should bear ; 
The germs of budding cells began 

Within the garden of the past, 
Then sllv'ry rivers sparkling ran. 

Shaded by mountains high and vast. 

ii8 



IV. 



Lush was the clust'ring sweet red fruit 

That hung from bending tree ; 
Forth from green sapped shoot 

Grew bright flowers to tempt the bee. 
All things were fair that sprung 

From the matrix of mother Eve ; 
The morning star with gladness sung, 

Where creeping vine, or golden sheave 
Rewarded Adam's sun-brown'd toil ; 

Night follow'd labor's weary day ; 
The strife, the heat, the day's turmoil, 

Passed in restful sleep away. 



V. 



Sol hid his glowing face; 

Eve bathed in star-zoned night. 
She gaz'd with solemn awe on space, 

And noted all the shifting flight 
Of stars and moons that rose 

From out the midnight's vasty deep. 
To lighten man's well-earn'd repose. 

And close his tired eyes in sleep. 
Watchful Adam, on his day rounds. 

Vivified the germs of future buds, 
Measured Eve's fair verdant bounds ; 

He filled the sky with April floods, 
That smiling May might bear 

Her incense to the blushing flowers 
And swing her censers in the air 

For lush summer's ripening hours. 

119 



THE SPIDER VICE. 

I. 

Vice's spider with artistic skill, 

And spinnerets padded glands, 
Enweaves upon the window sill 

Her web of many strands. 
How motionless she waits 

For some poor foolish fly 
That knocks at danger's gates, 

Where hidden pitfalls lie. 

II. 

With measurement precise 

She anchors here and there 
A thread — to cunningly entice 

The unwary to her minotaurian lair. 
How industriously she weaves 

Her circles, octagons, and squares, 
Adroitly she deceives 

The victims she ensnares. 

III. 

Swiftly he travels 'round the pane, 

And with his thousand- facet eyes. 
Sees the near danger, yet goes back again, 

Then from the corner hies. 
Slowly, more slowly, he returns, 

Lured by some circean spell. 
At last — too late — he learns 

The spider's in her cell. 

120 



IV. 

Around the net he cautious plies. 

Nor ventures yet too near ; 
A victim of the brilliant dyes, 

That charm away his fear. 
Every soft and sinuous fold 

Thus temptingly invites, 
Until he grows more bold, 

And on the web alights. 



Poor buzzing fly, each foot and wing 

Breaks oft — the weaver's thread. 
Tightly around the thoughtless thing 

A winding sheet is spread, 
A silken sheen, so taut and trim, 

That folly wove with care. 
Each strand a scoff, or idle whim 

That ended in despair. 



VI. 

This velvet terror slowly draws 

A shroud around the foolish flies; 
With her entangling claws 

Her weaver skill she plies. 
She draws the warm, red blood until 

The last globule is in her maw. 
Then drops these flies upon the sill, 

Or in the barn-yard straw. 

121 



DEATH'S BANQUET. 

* 
I. 

Dark shadows gather in the gloom, 
Around Death's ebon board ; 

They fill the gloaming room 
With Time's immortal hoard. 

n. 

This hall is draped with sable, 

A cloth of raven hue, 
Bound with a woven cable 

That the Parcae will oft renew. 

III. 

From each close-cowled hood 
Gleam phantom hell-lit eyes 

That burn, and stream, as would 
The sheen of phosphorescent dyes. 

IV. 

Their moth-eaten mantles flutter 
From fleshless, rattling bones ; 

Low curses they grimly utter, 
Their sighs are dismal groans. 

V. 

They heed no mortal's prayers, 
Their smile a soulless leer, 

Their chants are ghoulish airs. 
That mock the sorrow of a tear. 

122 



VI. 

They revel in the phantom wine, 
And stroke each gray old beard; 

They pass along the mouldy line 
The jest that's aged and weird. 

VII. 
They pass Death's jasper cup, 

And from its brim they sip ; 
'Tis life's wine they so redly sup, 

Then wipe each bearded lip. 

VIII. 

They render each a toast, 

Nor smile, nor gravely laugh ; 

To each gray shrouded ghost, 
A death they grimly quaff. 

IX. 

They will mix your blood, and mine, 
With the blood of millions dead ; 

Till suns shall cease to shine, 
Till death and life are wed. 



TIME, THE ICONOCLAST. 

I. 

My wings are leaden, matter I deaden, 
I have an iron heart, my cruel shadows dart 
From the recess of decay, thus I sweep away 
Cobwebs of the past ; I am the iconoclast. 

123 



11. 



What care I for strange creeds, or brave ambitions, war- 
like deeds ? 

They are nothing to me, nor can they ever be ; 

I draw the veil of years over their pleasures and their 
tears ; 

With earthly rubbish they are cast, for I am the icono- 
clast. 



III. 



I'm Destiny's cold slave, I have no hallow'd grave. 

I do not rest or sleep, I never, never weep ; 

I move forever on, and on ; I am here, and then I am 

gone ; 
I am an echo of the past, the grim iconoclast. 



IV. 



Yon ruined vase, with fragments at its base, 
Is a proud trophy of my will — what is your human skill ? 
It is Time's lawful prey that I most grimly sweep away 
To mark the crumbling past, for I am the iconoclast. 



I am an image breaker, a most cruel undertaker, 
I bury 'neath the mould of the weird underwold, 
All dead earthly matter ; I pull down and scatter, 
To build gray ruins for the past. I am the iconoclast. 

124 



BY THE SEA. 

I. 

Is it the vast sea that makes me lonely. 
While I sit and farward gaze ; 

Or the echo of its music only, 
That Neptune's harper plays? 

n. 

Or the vastness stretching grandly, 
Or the weird songs the sea-god sings. 

As the waves sweep ever landly 
With foamy crested wings? 

III. 

What low, sad murmur softly lulls, 
My dreaming soul to quiet rest, 

When the fleet-winged, restless gulls 
Circle near my rock-ribbed crest? 

IV. 

The resounding ocean woos me. 
With its eternal voic'd refrain ; 

What can these wild emotions be 
That fill my heart with pain? 

V. 

Is it the chant of ages farward flown 
That makes my soul feel sad, 

While the rough billows break and moan, 
As if the world were mad? 

125 



VI. 

These rippling waves are borne 

From the god-music of the spheres. 

Leaflets from the ages torn 
That God Almighty hears. 

VII. 

Apollo s harp wild-stringed 

Played by Boreas' aeolian hand, 

Minor tones soft-winged 
That break upon the strand. 

VIII. 

What minstrel lightly sweeps 

Each golden-lyred string, 
What music softly sleeps 

In this trembling breathing thing? 

IX. 

How in the hours of sadness 

It grows, and grows, into my soul. 

My brain with drowsy madness 
Culls the ocean's ceaseless roll. 



X. 



Great song of vanished ages 
What grand melody divine 

This anthem murmuring presages 
Strains more lofty, more sublime. 

126 



CREATION'S DOOM. 



The last star shall fall from the sky 
A gem in Cimmeria's black sea; 

Like a wounded bird 'twill flutter and lie 
On the shores of immensity. 



II. 



The last cloud that curtains the sky 
Will freeze in the coldness of space; 

The last moon that sails slowly by 
Shall fall from its orbital place. 



III. 



The last meteor shall flash on its way 
With erratic wandering flight, 

And light, with its glare and display, 
Dread disruptions chaotic might. 



IV. 

The last flicker of heavenly light 
Shall glimmer in darkness profound ; 

The Stygian gloom of this awful night 
Will sweep on its last solemn round. 

127 



The last hope of creation shall sink 
Like lead on dark nature's cold breast, 

And glide over time's hoary brink, 
Then plunge to its lethean rest. 

VI. 

Swirling stars shall vortex a goal, 

Where lightning with one mighty sheet 

Will usher the thunder's deep roll, 
Melting matter with measureless heat. 

VII. 

Stars shall fall on that day 
Through depths of immensity; 

The vast scroll of motion will pass away 
Into black voids of intensity. 

VIII. 

Dire confusion shall exultingly sway 
All the stars that glitter in space ; 

Glares of red lightning will vividly play 
Over heaven's disrupted face. 

IX. 

Vast comets shall careeringly trail 

Over the vastness of gathering gloom; 

Auroras shall flash and grow pale 
Upon time's dismembered tomb. 

128 



TWILIGHT REVERIES. 
I. 

Twilight, gentle twilight, 

Ghostly peace of slumbering day, 
Blends with the shades of night 

To steal our thoughts away 
From sordid, delving care, 

That great soul dreams 
May thus displace the glare 

Of day's last beams. 

II. 

Gaze from thy window, then, 

O Poet — dreamer, friend ; 
Heed'st thou the woes of men 

That thou mayst lend 
Some gifted charm to life. 

And trance dull care away. 
With golden chords all rife. 

With twilight's peaceful lay. 

III. 

The gloaming of thy soul 

Shall seek the fading West, 
Where hope's gray, transfigured goal 

Will gently whisper, rest. 
Wrap twilight's mantle around thee. 

For in its pure, shadowy haze 
Thy lofty soul shall be 

A star in twilight's rays. 

129 



THE LAST MAN. 
I. 

The last man shall cower, and see 
A deluge of stars that will sweep 

Through the wide aisles of immensity. 
So measureless, vast and so deep. 



II. 



The last of mortality's race 

Shall mix with cold, dead earth, 

And leave not a petrified trace 
Of far creation's ephemeral birth. 



III. 



The last drop of blood in his heart 
Will wither, and flow not again; 

The red wound so deadly will smart 
With fear's pallid, quivering pain. 



IV. 

His last thought shall solemnly lie 
In the dark depths of eternity's goal; 

His phantasmagorial sigh 

Will shadow his God-given soul. 

130 



ECCE HOMO. 



Behold the man from vices free 
Abhorring that which should not be. 
Eschewing sin for virtue's self, 
Exempt from folly, pride and pelf; 
Quick always to forgive a wrong, 
Encas'd in mail, with rivets strong; 
^iliant for right and bold of heart. 
Accepting ever for his part 
Hard burdens that life often brings ; 
Fortune's outrageous, soulless flings 
Are Summer flaws, are naught to him; 
Earth's sorest tests are dross, whose film 
Hides nature's purest gold beneath ; 
The cross, the crown, the victor's wreath, 
Are silent symbols of the truth 
That softens age and hallows youth. 

11. 

Build thou a mansion all thine own 
Of ashlers white, of polished stone ; 
Testing by the craftsman's true square 
Exact proportions, white and fair; 
No sound of hammer, yet hewn true, 
With corn, and wine, and oil for you, 
Well earned the craftsman's wages. 
Stored in the archives of the ages. 
Within a house, not made with hands. 
Where storms, nor wrecks, nor shifting sands, 
Shall frown, or roughly surge, or sweep 
O'er thy soul's tomb when thou shalt sleep. 

131 



THE SOUL OF A STAR. 

I. 

O soul of a star, you twinkle afar ; 
In God's wide sky do you tiash by, 
Thro' infinite space, and leave not a trace 
On Time's wrinkled face. 

11. 

Have you lost souls, seeking their goals 

In star deeps, where Saturn keeps 

The keys to mansions fair? What have you there, 

Away up in the air? 

III. 

Lost star beams, great, glittering streams 
Banished from time to voids sublime ; 
Dark to all space, leaving no trace 
Of your mileless race. 

IV. 

How many ages, how many stages, 
Since your pale light outflashed in the night, 
From your distant shore, from the evermore. 
Will your steady light pour? 

V. 

O soul of a star, will you unbar 
From Time's womb and Death's tomb 
The portal of doubt, as we stand without, 
Gazing over the unmark'd route? 

132 



VI. 



Will your light fade in the orbital shade 
Of each glowing sun? Is your last race run? 
Has it only begun? Is age's web spun? 
And its life-work done? 



VII. 

Do you world some race, whose eternal grace 
No time can trace, nor sin deface ; 
Where death is unknown, where the moments flown 
Never echo a moan? 

VIII. 

Shine on earth's scroll, with effulgent soul ; 
Let each bright beam with silvery stream 
Send fadeless hope, that seer's horoscope 
With lingering doubt may cope. 



MY DREAM STAR. 

I. 

Over earth's green altar you shine 
With your glittering beams divine, 
Each silvery, twinkling ray 
That shines on my wearisome way 
Brightens the gloom. 

133 



11. 



Are you love's dear, pale, drifting star, 
To graciously, lightly unbar 
Hope's dreamland gate? 
Are you my soul's star-gilded fate, 
O goddess divine? 



III. 

What do you whisper now — 
Some silver-lipped vow 
That laughs in its quaint joy? 
Some lovers that rudely decoy 
Faith with the luring of false love? 



IV. 

Are you hope's merry child, 
With your fancies so wild, 
To bring me fairy dreams 
While your silvery streams 
Flash on my soul? 

V. 

Would fairest hopes be dead 
If your soft light were fled? 
Oh, beam, pale, silent star, 
From your dark throne afar, 
And smile on strange destiny. 

134 



DAUGHTER OF FATE. 

I. 

Blind are you, O relentless queen ? 
Do your feet stumble? Do you lean 
On Time's stout staff? 

11. 

Darkly grope you where light 
Beams from the realms of night 
And dreams? 

III. 
Are you moulding strange deeds. 
That your relentless seeds 
May fill the earth? 

IV. 

What dark loom do you use? 
Are your sandaled shoes 
Upon the swift treadle? 



THE CASTLE OF KISMET. 

I. 

A pilgrim sought the grim castle of fate, 
With its towers tall,' its guarded gate; 
At the portal dark, aged Saturn stands, 
With a sickle in his withered hands. 



The neighing steed of the pale rider, death. 
Paws the court with steamy breath; 
Panting, restive, eager to go, 
Bearing forever his message of woe. 



11. 



This pilgrim entered the gateway wide, 
Where milHons of mortals, with all their pride, 
Had gone before. The stately ebon halls 
Were thronged. His sandal'd foot-falls 
Startl'd the weavers that bent 
O'er each task that the Parcae sent. 



in. 



Each weary weaver sat in her drear stall. 
Ranged in rows down the strong- vaulted wall; 
Never they look'd to the right or the left, 
But spun their threads with fingers deft; 
With eyes cast down and fingers worn 
They mended the rents of the ravels torn 
From the fringe of time, as he noiselessly sped, 
Guiding souls to the vast realms of the dead. 



IV. 



The spindles worn, went round and round; 
Not an echo — not a whispering sound 
Was heard, as busy fingers plann'd, 
Only to obey the low, stern command 
Of the king that sat on his ebon throne. 

136 



From his iron heart came never a moan, 
While these weavers weaved, with patient toil, 
Winding the strands in an intricate coil. 
Ever the distaffs were winding Fate's thread, 
As in and out the shuttles sped. 



V. 



The spindles dron'd, the bobbins flew, 
Weaving garments so strange and new 
For coming events that were fashioned here. 
Working ever for shroud and bier, 
Seeking for strands of spider's line ; 
Making warps so smooth and fine 
That Arachne paused to praise the rare skill 
.That was immortal — no weak, human will 
Had interwoven a single strand — 
All was wrought by Fate's cold hand. 



VI. 



No dismal hum of the silent looms 

Startled the air of the spectral rooms ; 

No treadles creaked, yet the treadles spun 

The web of life, from sun to sun. 

Reeling off the red woofs of life. 

Envyings, hatred, malice, strife, 

Came reeking from each busy loom ; 

Yet breaking no silence — lightening no gloom. 

^Z7 



VII. 

Weaving fabrics for destiny's loom, 
Making shrouds for this world's dark tomb. 
Heavy-ey'd, weary, dejected, and pale. 
Tracing for Time a sombre veil. 
Lasting for Mercury, fleet-winged shoes, 
Binding a shirt of many hues, 
For jealousy — e'er vigilant, wretched and sad, 
Heaping up rage for madmen mad ; 
Turning sweet faith to inveterate hate. 
Guarding ever this dark agent of Fate. 

VIII. 

The pilgrim marveled at the wonderful skill 
That turned the wheel of Nemesis' mill. 
Ever the grist came, even measur'd back, 
Sized and groun'd on the protean rack 
Of Destiny. The old miller was stern. 
As he gauged with care, each turn 
Of the time-worn wheel, while the reel 
That was adjusted for woe, or for weal, 
Wove patterns so weird and so strange 
That these daughters of Fate could not arrange 
From the wondrous, eventful maze 
The vices and follies of every age. 

IX. 

What do you weave ? the pilgrim said. 

I weave a raiment of fiery red ; 

'Tis the robe of passion, all aflame, 

With the glow of love and the hem of shame. 

138 



Is narrow, ah ! this crimson gown 
Is worn by persons of renown. 
The peasant, in his humble cot, 
Shall love too well, and he shall not 
Escape from my conquering thrall ; 
Thus I weave my red robes for all. 



X. 



What do you make? this good pilgrim asked, 

For her pale, sad face was thinly masqued. 

I mould for Deception, and the human fair face 

A masque to hide the faintest trace. 

That Candor may thus vainly seek 

Honest thought, that the tongue should speak; 

For truth is dull, the he is swift. 

I fasten them'' strong, that none may ere lift 

These immortal masques that surely hide 

The beggar's rags with a king's cold pride. 



XL 



What do you weave? the pilgrim queried, 
As her worn fingers sped with soul awearied. 
I weave a robe with the centaur's dread skill; 
A shirt that maddens, that man may kill — 
'Tis yellow and bright, for jealousy weaves 
A sordid robe with greenish sleeves ; 
It poisons the blood till a ghoulish tinge 
Deepens the color on this mocking fringe. 
I laugh to see them hide in vain 
The distorted spots that come again. 

139 



XII. 

What do you weave? the maiden sighed. 

Robes, shrouds for those who tried 

To reach the marble halls of fleeting fame, 

Through war and slaughter, sword and flame, 

Building on Mars' red-burning pyre, 

A bruised altar of gods' plutonian fire. 

This purple robe I trim with bays, 

Scorching the heart with its seething blaze, 

Building for hope a mortal crown; 

Thus I weave this selfish gown. 

XIII. 

What do you trim? Looking at you. 

You sew and sew, and then undo. 

I work, she sighed, a cloak for the tongue ; 

I have toiled so long my nerves are unstrung. 

'Tis a hopeless task, for the pieces shrink; 

Those mortals talk before they think. 

Alas ! alas ! if I only knew 

Exactly the proper thing to do; 

For the tongue is unruly — so hard to control — 

Oft stinging to death some innocent soul. 



WHAT IS MAN? 
I. 

What is this w^aif, nam'd man? 
Some existent in God's creative plan, 
The apex of the hoary ages, 
Advanced by creeping stages 
From protoplasmic cells? 

140 



II. 

He saw the aeon's circling birth, 
This product of the coohng earth, 
Endowed with God-Hke reason, 
He marked each changing season 
And all the fruitful years. 

III. 

Blessed with an immortal soul, 

He mapped the stars on heaven's high scroll; 

His plodding, restless brain 

Ruled earth's enzoned domain 

By ripe reason's conquering might. 

IV. 
This is fair reason's royal king, 
This crawling, climbing thing ; 
A prey to every scarlet vice 
That tempts man only to entice 
The clayey part of man. 

V. 

What God-like attributes that helpless trail, 
In dust — the soul — what prayers avail? 
Debasing greed, with its alluring goal. 
Exacts Golgotha's prurient toll 
For death and time. 

VI. 

The lower instincts of each class 
That live awhile, and darkward pass 
On evolution's onward road. 
Have left for man a weary load 
That dread eternity must bear. 

141 



VII. 

Where's thy humanity, O serf? 
DeHver in the cadmean turf, 
O'ersown with dragons' teeth. 
Weaving for Time an ebon wreath 
Of fading bays. 



TRUTH. 



I. 

Truth is a gem whose greatest worth 
Is in its angles, ground full true; 

A pebble rough, whose Titan birth 
Concealed each rainbow tinted hue. 



II. 

A jewel, whose divergent ray 
Lurks in the drop of morning dew ; 

Lights scintillating play, 

Brings all the colors into view. 

in. 

Truth, thrice blessed the hour 

That heralded thy birth, 
When sense, with reasoning power 

First bless'd thy sterling worth. 

142 



IV. 

Truth, thou foe to every doubt, 
Clear-eyed goddess of the mind. 

What were deceptive Hfe without 

The truth that leaves no sting behind? 



V. 

Burn, O celestial fire, with quenchless flame, 
Vestals pour your garnered oil ; 

Rout thou the shams of greed and shame 
That bind the hands of honest toil. 



VI. 

Let truth and reason swift unbind. 
With freedom's bold immortal hand. 

The shackles that debase the mind 

And dim the honor of our native land. 

VII. 

Hold thou thy steadfast way, 

Though stars and planets fall. 
Shine with thy light divine, and make to-day 

The noblest, proudest day of all. 

VIII. 

Truth, thrice blessed in death's cold hour. 
When man's fluttering pulse is still, 

Come with thy solacing power, 
And heal the soul of cankering ill. 

143 



OLD AGE. 

I. 

Old age is the chrysalis of the soul. 
Whose shroud of earthly clay 

Hides heaven's restful goal, 
When life, from death's decay, 

Breaks its frail ephemeral shell. 



11. 



Age is nature's protean coin 
That time and tide exact. 

What mortal can purloin, 
Or cunning thief abstract 

This, that pays Hfe's debt? 

III. 

Age falls so gently, that 
We do not with dismay 

Heed the pale visitor that sat 
Upon the throne of yesterday, 

Until v^e die. 



IV. 

Age haunts the bleak ruins of self. 
Weathered, gray, and old. 

Although its gold, its hoarded pelf. 
Increase a hundred fold, 

It cannot buy delay. 

144 



Years are sear Autumn leaves 

That nestle one by one 
Amongst the reaper's golden sheaves, 

And when the harvest's done 
Age dies to live again. 



VI. 



Age is a wrinkled, woful thing 

That, tottering far westward, creeps 

Where darkling shadows fling 

Their mantles o'er the sun-crown'd steeps 

Of gilded youth. 



VII. 

Age's brown immortal crown, 
Makes man a mystic king; 

Though he rule no walled town, 
Or wear no signet ring, 

Yet is age a god of newer life. 

VIII. 

Age sobers all our sense; 

The years, like garnered oil. 
Are some grand recompense 

For years of useful toil. 
And thus earth's debts are paid. 

145 



IX. 

Age is wisdom's mentor, to guide 
The hasty steps of youth; 

It levels man's o'erweaning pride 
And hallows god-like truth, 

That lives when error dies. 

X. 

Age is an heritage of previous age, 
A law that follows time; 

'Tis earth's star-bound pilgrimage, 
A law creative, eternal, sublime. 

For all the future years. 



THE SONG OF THE TYPE. 

I. 

Click, click, into the stick. 

By letter, and line I go, 
Forming a matrix, click, click, click. 

Column by column, row by row. 

II. 

Click, click, from the assorted case 

I pe^ with leaden eyes. 
At the poor printer's pallid face. 

Smeared with carbon dyes. 

146 



III. 

Click, click, by the electrical light, 
Weary fingers move to and fro, 

Heedless of the deepening night 
They rectify the leaded row. 

IV. 

Into the mould the wax is run. 
With skill the plates are made; 

Page after page in solids done, 
In careful proof displayed. 

V. 

Feeds the Hoe lightning press, 
Then to carrier's counting room, 

And the mailing clerk's address. 

The morning hours they thus consume. 

VI. 

Click, click, forth for weal or woe, 

By horse, by river, and rail, 
Over all the broad land I go. 

Pouched in the U. S. mail. 

VII. ' 

Fearless of praise or blame, 

I give the world the news ; 
What care I for honor or shame, 

Or the trouble that ensues ? 

147 



VIII. 

Click, click, I make or unmake fame, 
I roast some trust combine, 

What to me is a noble name. 
Or a prisoner's sentenced fine ? 

IX. 

I mould political thought, 

I draw vividly party lines ; 
Intrigues, fusions, to me are naught, 

I break all ward bummers' combines. 



X. 

I have a swell society column, too, 
Also a woman's graphical page. 

That glows with something new ; 
A fashion that is all the rage. 

XL 

I write up rich absentees' ways 

Ensconced in some woodland nook ; 

I headline some emotional craze, 
A story, a poem, or book. 

XII. 

Into foul alleys and hovels I peep. 
Where want and famine lurk ; 

I plead for the women that weep. 
The men that are starving for work. 

148 



XIII. 

Virtue, I unstintedly praise; 

Vice, I denounce with vim; 
My optics are truly X-rays, 

When I probe some impossible whim. 



LIFE'S UNDERTOW. 
I. 

The undertow of the human soul 
Eludes our ephemeral sight ; 

Its waves of sin in silence roll 
Where all is curtain'd night. 



II. 



Who has not felt this undertide 
Sweep virtue out to sea, 

Its waves with swiftness glide 
Back to the depths eternally? 

III. 

No surface caps with playful swell, 
No winds that shoreward blow, 

Can reach the treacherous spell 
Of this unending undertow. 

149 



IV. 

It swirls up on the shifting sand, 
Beneath the breakers' crash, 

It Hcks the white, ghstening strand, 
With playful curl and plash. 



V. 

No buoyed coastline bell 
Clangs in the sea below ; 

No mortal tongue to tell 
Of this grim, insidious foe. 



VI. 

Drifting with every wave. 
Helpless to sea we go, 

To sin a tempted slave. 
Lost in life's undertow. 

VII. 

How sullenly it recedes. 
Back on its sullen crest. 

It bears our evil deeds 

On its cold, unpitying breast. 

VIII. 

Who has escaped this web. 
That lures the human will? 

Ever the seas' dread ebb, 

Laughs at the swimmer's skill. 

150 



WHAT GOD SAW, SEES, AND HEARS. 

I. 

He saw our gaseous earth evolve 

From a nebulous, whirling cloud. 
With its rings and heated vapors, 

Its cooling crust by wrinkles plowed. 

n. 

He saw this world with grandeur roll 

Amidst the stars of space, 
And spin on each unsteady pole 

Within the sun's embrace. 

HI. 

He saw our globe with flashing light 

Shine fair among the suns. 
The thickening womb of sable night, 

The volcano's seething lava runs. 

IV. 

The circling years and seasons fly 

Upon their orbs of time, 
The length'ning days, the studded sky, 

The tilting pole, the changing clime. 

V. 

He saw the universal sea 

Wave-washed, unhindered roll ; 
The lands that were to be 

Were marshy, low, and shoal. 



VI. 

He saw the bold Laurentian 

Upheave and burst each strand, 

Like grim creation's sentinel, 
It sired the growing land. 

VII. 

No prototype in this strange world 
Upreared its flowering head, 

No calyx, frond, or lush leaf curl'd. 
Bloomed in its low laurentian bed. 

VIII. 

The crust was sea-girth bound'd, 
A cooling bubble, cooling slow ; 

Its granite walls resounded 

With the ocean's unending flow. 

IX. 

The forcing rain from dark storm clouds 
Fell on each mount and plain ; 

'Twas nature's torrential shrouds 
That broke upon the cliffs in vain. 



X. 



He saw the wide and shallow sea 
Teem with coral building life ; 

The EozooN, silent toiler, living tree, 
A sport for nature's titan strife. 



XI. 

The cooling crust over-heavy 

With naught but fire below, 
Was Terra's exacting levy, 

The earthquake's rumbling throe. 

XII. 

The vast Silurian floor 

That stretched o'er ocean bed. 

Teemed with Crustacean spore, 
With jointed arms and heads. 

XIII. 

The LiNGULA slowly swayed 
. From a sessile arm or joint, 
They fed on germ-like phosphates, 
That to grander gradients point. 

XIV. 

Upon its ancient, muddy floor 

The Trilobite, with wormlike creep, 

Plows in its yielding ooze, 

Or rests within its depths to sleep. 

XV. 

The Corals fill each shallow cove 
With figures quaint and bright ; 

These pillared saints, with flowers above, 
Grow upward to the light. 

153 



XVI. 

The Gasteropods awkwardly move 

Beneath this iris glade, 
Or coil within each tinted shell 

That nature protean made. 

XVII. 

The Ort«oceras, huge and long, 
In its straight chambered cells. 

Floats calmly in the rippling tide. 
The ancient sea's unending swells. 

XVIII. 

The tyrants of this watery world, 

They dart upon their prey, 
Or browse on polyps like honey bee, 

Then swiftly glide away. 

XIX. 

He saw the strange Devonian, 
Its sandstones red and gray; 

He saw older creations 
Sink gradually away. 

XX. 

These wide, warm seas were swarming 

With quaint and scaly life, 
The fish encased in armor 

Were fitted for such strife. 



XXL 

The dread Ptergotus darts forward, 
He strikes his helpless prey, 

Then plunges quickly backward 
With his telsons motile play. 

XXII. 

The huge Dinichthys swiftly swims, 
With fins, and flippers, too — its jaw, 

With saber teeth projecting, 
Fills his rapacious maw. 

XXIII. 

These fierce armor-plated fishes 
That crowd this devonian sea, 

Struggle ever for existence, 
Foreshadowing God's decree. 

XXIV. 

He saw the Carboniferous, 

With its wealth of leaf and tree, 

Bury untold ages under 
That had limned eternity. 

XXV. 

The carboniferous air was heavy 

With its load of poison gas, 
The trees with graceful grandeur 

Bend to the storms that pass. 



XXVI. 

The towering ferns were waving 

In the stifling, sultry breeze, 
The Calamites shoot upwards 

Among the trunks of sculptured trees. 

XXVII. 

SiGiLLARiA, with huge expanse of root, 
With rush-like tapering stem. 

With ribb'd and seal-marked bark, 
Scars of leaves that fell from them. 

XXVIII. 

Megaphyton, with strange stairway, 

Extending up each side, 
With a giant leaf expanding 

From two furrows deep and wide. 

XXIX. 

God saw them slowly vanish. 
Saw them sink beneath the wave, 

While the ever sterile Permian 
Hid them in shaley grave. 

XXX. 

Layer after layer 

Of sedimentary rock. 
Pressed waving forests under 

With neither haste nor shock. 

156 



XXXI. 

In the depths securely hidden 

Of earth's entombed night. 
He stored our wealth of fuel, 

Our future source of light. 

XXXII. 

He saw the triune Mesozoic, 

With its titan forms of life. 
Reaching onward, ever upward, 

rill he used the pruning knife. 

XXXIII. 

The air was filled with dragons. 
That flew with shining wings. 

All life their helpless prey, 
A foe to creeping things. 

XXXIV. 

The Laelaps, eagle-clawed, and towering 

Above the lordly pines. 
Leaps with agile-footed strength. 

His eyes with slaughter shine. 

XXXV. 

He tears and gnaws his quivering food. 

With curved, serrated teeth, 
Or crushes in his cumb'rous way 

All life that falls beneath. 

157 



XXXVI. 

A Dinosaur, with head erect, 

While sitting at his ease. 
With lofty height and eagle's sight. 

Feeds on the tops of trees. 

XXXVII. 

The Labyrinthodon drags his length along. 

The low, receding shore. 
Or plunges in the marshes near. 

With bellowing, echoing roar. 

XXXVIII. 

The sea is filled with monsters 

That grimly sport the waves, 
They leave their bones to tell us 

Of earth's unnumbered graves. 

XXXIX. 

The IcTHYOSAUR, with jaws extended, 

And round, concave-plated eyes. 
Lunges, waveward, while he crunches 

His icthy-swift finned prize. 

XL. 

The Plesiosaur, with swanlike body 

And graceful, arching neck, 
Glides with his expansive flippers 

On the ocean's breast a speck. 

'58 



XLL 

Or floats upon the waters 

Of a land-lock'd placid lake 
Where he thrusts his long neck downwards, 

Its food thus to maim and take. 

XLII. 

The Mososaurus towering skyward 
On the storm-tossed, frowning main, 

Alert, its eyes from their great height. 
Survey Neptune's vast domain. 

XLIII. 

Its neck a living pillar, 

That would dwarf a vessel's mast; 
Its tail, a huge propeller. 

Lashing water, swimming fast. 

XLIV. 

The Elasmosaur, a true reptile, 

A giant swimming snake. 
With undulating motion, 

Churning foam into a wake. 

XLV. 

God saw these creations crumble. 
With the withering touch of time. 

He formed neozoic strata, 

With wondrous power sublime. 

159 



XLVI. 

The elephantine Dinotherium, 
With its huge unwieldy weight, 

Uprooted trees with foliage, 
Which greedily it ate. 

XLVII. 

The ZuGLODON, a fierce amphibian, 
With its eighty feet of length, 

Was watching, ever waiting, 

To measure strife, and savage strength. 

XLVIII. 

The cat-like Machairdus, 

With projecting, downward tusks, 

Springs on the Pachyderma, 
In old arcadian dusks. 

XLIX. 

The SiVATHERiUM, a giant, elk-like deer. 
Seeks the purling winding streamlet. 

With no mortal foeman near. 
To stalk the strange wild glen. 

L. 

His huge four-pronged antlers. 

With agile mammoth size. 
Foreshadows all the ruminants, 

That from the pachyderms arise. 

1 60 



LI. 



God saw the carapaced Gluptodon 
Unwieldy, unique and strange, 

Trailing his ill-proportioned length, 
Through plain and mountain range. 

LIT. 

He saw the face of nature, 

Covered o'er with sheets of ice, 

The glaciers southward grinding. 
Holding Terra in its vice. 

LHI. 

Earth for aeons frozen 

In Cosmos crystal shell, 
The glacier's slow regression 

Bareing morain, lake and dell. 

LIV. 

God saw the house was ready 
For the long expected guest; 

From nature's stony pages 

He made man, the last and best. 

LV. 

He saw Paleolithic tribes 

Fiercely hunt their mammoth prey, 
With arrow-heads of silex, 

Chipped from flints that near them lay. 

i6i 



LVI. 

They were children of the forest, 
Of cave and sheltering nook ; 

They ate their uncooked food 
By the silver running brook. 

LVII. 

They chased the hairy mammoth 

That crashed through bough and brake, 

Bulky, huge, herbivorous, 
Miring in some ancient lake. 

LVIII. 

Leaving tombs to tell the story, 

Of the ages, protean, vast ; 
Of races wild and ancient, 

Survivors of creation's past. 

LIX. 

Naught they knew of sideral time, 
Or the sun's slow westward flight ; 

The phases of the horned moon, 
Or stars that gem the night. 

LX. 

They were nimrods in their day, 

No other thought but game, 
That fled, or crouching lay. 

Victims of man's reasoning aim. 

162 



LXI. 

He saw this neolithic throng 
Move backward to the west, 

Their weapons ground and polished 
And adornments on each breast. 

LXII. 

They wore strings of beads and coral, 

With pearly tinted shells ; 
They wove cloth and coarser mattings. 

From the fiberous bark of dells. 

LXIII. 

Their minds with space were awed, 
Immortal dreams and thought, 

Came to each God evolving brain. 
That patient nature taught. 

LXIV. 

They laid their dead in caves, 
In caverns sealed and deep ; 

Food and weapons with the dead, 
Their vigils dumbly keep. 

LXV. 

God saw The Bronze Age ushered in, 
With its metals mixed with care ; 

They moulded knives and hatchets. 
With knowledge wondrous rare. 

163 



LXVI. 

The Lacustrine early dwellers. 
Lived in cabins built on piers, 

His humble boat he paddles, 
And lakeward deftly steers. 

LXVIL 

Secure from shoreward danger, 
In his rude homelike retreat, 

He lives on game and tillage, 
Where land and water meet. 

LXVHL 

God saw The Age of Iron, 

With its thirst for war and strife ; 

Its spears and shields of metal. 
Its reckless loss of life. 

LXIX. 

He saw warlike nations struggle 
For the land he gave to all ; 

Crowns and kingdoms crumble 
Behind tower, fort and wall. 

LXX. 

He saw the Greeks and Romans, 
With their legions trained and tried, 

Over-run with compact phalanx 
The lands where thousands died. 

164 



LXXI. 

He saw the ancient seats of learning, 
Spring from Egypt's mystic fold ; 

He saw Israel's helpless captives 
Build the pyramids of old. 

Lxxn. 

He saw entire nations vanish, 
And melt like evening's dew ; 

He saw dead continents peopled 
By races strange and new. 

Lxxni. 

He saw His Holy Word neglected 
By His chosen favored race ; 

His teachings oft rejected, 

As they moved from place to place. 

LXXIV. 

He saw their hearts were hardened ; 

He smote them in His wrath ; 
He scattered them like leaflets, 

Before the storm king's smitten path. 

LXXV. 

He sees a world that should be heaven, 
A heaven that should be earth. 

Filled with human suffering. 
Sad inheritance of birth. 

165 



LXXVI. 

He sees the gaunt and hungry glare 
Of eyes long used to weep, 

The orphan's trusting prayer, 

While they sob their souls to sleep. 

LXXVII. 

He sees want shiver over 

Lumps of stolen coal, 
Sees women sell their virtue 

And wreck each God-born soul. 

Lxxvni. 

He sees the haunts of vice 

Reeking with their load of sin ; 

The rattle of the dice 

That lures the stranger in. 

LXXIX. 

He hears all the earnest prayers 
Of one thousand sects and creeds ; 

Ever praying for the blessings, 
That spring from urgent needs. 

LXXX. 

He hears the grim god of battle. 

Invoked <b win the day. 
Midst the inusket's roaring rattle. 

The cannons' deep-mouthed bay. 

i66 



LXXXI. 

Both armies pleading to Him, 
For the victor's bloody crown, 

Where the laurel and the cypress, 
Grow from unhallowed ground. 

LXXXII. 

He hears warlike battle anthems, 

Voiced by victorious hosts, 
The Te Deum grandly chanted, 

Grim chorus of pale murder'd ghosts. 

Lxxxni. 

He hears the mortal wail 

Of a sin curs'd wicked world. 

Sees Satan with his standard, 
In every heart unfurled. 

LXXXIV. 

From the quaint monad to man, 
Through all the forms of life, 

The struggle for existence 
Is naught but savage strife. 

LXXXV. 

Dim ages will follow ages. 

And roll onwards in their gloom ; 

Earth will yield her increase, 
But only for the tomb. 

167 



LXXXVI. 

When the breathing is heavy 
With the germs of Hfe's decay, 

He will marshal from the silence 
The dawn of God's great day. 



GOD'S TEMPLE. 
I. 



God's church is bright and brilliant. 

With a thousand tyrean dyes, 
He paints the floor of fair nature, 

And roofs it with the skies. 
His choir, the sweet-songed warblers, 

That pipe so wild and free. 
In every leafy forest, 

On every shrub and tree. 
His censors are the flowers, 

That waft their faint perfume 
Through aisles of fragrant beauty. 

In this grandly star-lit room. 



II. 



The pale glow worms and the beetles, 
Chant with low droning flight. 

Strident anthems to their maker. 
As they chirp through all the night, 

i68 



The stars are peeping lamps, 

That Hght its lofty dome> 
How they twinkle in their vastness, 

From their grandly distant home. 
The sparkling dews of night 

Are jewels in Nox's crown, 
Flashing with prismatic splendor. 

To light the heather brown. 

III. 

The full moon, with quiet softness, 

Deepens shades and shadows gray, 
On each peak and lofty mountain, 

These spires that stand alway. 
Muffled rolling thunder 

Is the organ's deep-mouthed boom. 
That echos and rumbles 

Through His pillared star-lit room. 

IV. 

God made this church of nature. 

And wrought with wondrous skill, 
Each mountain gorge and torrent, 

Each tiny sparkling rill. 
He made all the fertile valleys. 

With their wealth of wine and corn ; 
He made the sloping summits 

And the shepherd's echoing horn. 
He made herds of roving cattle 

To browse the grassy slope, 
To man he gave his blessing, 

He gave him faith and hope. 

169 



V. 



This is God's holy temple. 

Not made with mortal hands, 
Not bought with blood and pillage. 

Or spoils from many lands. 
Have thou a steadfast faith 

That the God who made us all 
Will not sleep nor slumber, 

Nor see one sparrow fall. 



THE WAIF OF A WRECK. 

There is a monastery by the sea. 

Whose walls are old and gray; 
They had been washed by storm and billow 

And by the ocean's spray. 
The thick landward walls are fragrant 

With a clinging, flowering vine, 
That clambers o'er the wide doorway 

With many a quaint twist and twine 
The hand-hewed oaken stanchions, 

That swing the studded door. 
Are carved with names and numbers. 

A pathway to the shore 
Winds through a bold rocky crevice, 

Where sea-gulls wildly scream; 
There a fountain coldly bubbles, 

Fed by a hidden stream. 

170 



For many a year and season 

The monks, with beads and prayer. 
Had climbed with sandal footsteps 

Each well-worn oaken stair. 
To welcome from turrets, 

That frowned o'er the ocean's bed, 
The sun, whose large, tardy splendor, 

O'er aged walls had shed 
A full stream, of golden sunshine, 

That gilded each sharp spire and stone 
With penciled ray and shadow. 

Until the morning hours had flown. 



Then the sky grew dull and ashen ; 

The sun, with sickly glare. 
Peeped out from clouds and riftlet ; 

The wind, that blew so fair. 
Now arose with pent-up fury 

And o'erswept with eddying gust ; 
How it whirl'd the leaves of autumn, 

In the highland's powdered dust. 
The waves were seething and angry, 

As they dashed with plunging roar 
Upon this far seagirt island, 

With its well-washed rocky shore. 



Transfixed with pious horror, 
These monks, with mute despair, 

Saw a vessel pitching helpless 
In the leeward offing, where 

171 



The treacherous rocks were hidden 

By the wild billows' mad-cap fling, 
As they lash'd the rocks with fury, 

With a fierce tiger's hungry spring. 
By the dread lightning's vivid glare, 

They saw a terror-stricken crowd. 
With its three score of staring eyes. 

Peer out from mast and shroud. 



The heavy jarring boom 

Of the minute gun at sea, 
Swelled from the deep, black darkness, 

That hid the restless lea. 
The storm king had little mercy 

For drifting ship and crew 
Swept shoreward to swift destruction. 

While wild winds fiercer blew. 
Her black prow is luffing, 

To face the angry blast ; 
She swings to the darkling windward, 

A sunken reef is past. 



Dark ocean, in thy angry wrath. 

Spare the helpless ship so taut and proud, 
Which soon will find a grave 

Within an ocean's watery shroud. 
Her black sides are lifted 

Athwart the angry sky ; 
Ha ! she plunges madly forward ; 

The deep despairing cry 

172 



Is heard above the roar 

Of howHng winds and waves, 

While they doom these stricken mortals 
To cold and watery graves. 



She strikes upon the rough breakers, 

Where the changing channel flows, 
Where the wind with whistling fury, 

Against the broad cliff blows. 
These cold, staring, clammy faces 

Peep from the sea's wide tomb, 
No frail human aid to succor. 

No fate to change their doom. 

The storm spent its fury, 

A low sun, with burnished ray, 

Broke through the clouds of evening, 
Just at the close of day. 



These good monks creep slowly downward, 

Through lofty craig and peak; 
For the dead and dying 

With diligence they seek. 
The rough shore is strewn with corpses, 

So pale, so ghastly still ; 
They slumber all unconscious. 

Nor heed hfe's direst ill. 
A jeweled corpse is rocking 

With the ebb and flow of tide. 
To mock all the splendor 

That bedecks a young happy bride. 

173 



The swarthy-visaged sailors, 

Who have braved a hundred storms 
On the ocean's shore and reeflets 

Bestrew their manly forms. 



Each clammy face was scanned, 

For one spark of fleeting life ; 
Ev'ry feeble pulse throb 

Was noted — but the ocean's strife 
Had robbed them of their being ; 

The black-wing'd angel, Death, 
Disappointed monk and layman. 

Had stifled every breath. 
They search in every crevice, 

In each nook and land-locked bay, 
Swept by sluggish billows 

In their wild wayward play. 



Till a shout from Brother Leonard 

Call'd each one to the place. 
Where lashed to mast and pinion, 

A baby's frightened face 
Peeped from a sailor's jacket. 

With flush and latent breath ; 
A waif snatched from the ocean, 

A wide cradle of grim death. 

They resuscitated the little waif. 
Till the child, with wondering eyes. 

Peered into bearded faces, 
With looks of shy surprise. 



It nestled closer to the cowl 
That enfolded its baby form ; 

How mutely it pleaded for protection, 
From the dark, receding storm. 



They raised the limpid bodies 

From coast to circling steep, 
Where the greenest verdure 

Overlooks the rolling deep. 
They laid each stranger down, 

And dug for each a grave, 
Where the sighing winds of autumn 

Rock every rippling wave. 
The church's rites and blessings 

For the nameless ones who lie 
Beneath the mountain sod 

Under a far-off alien sky. 



The little flower they saved. 

Was reared with tender care. 
It bloomed with rosy vigor. 

Where the island's lofty air 
Gave roses to her cheeks, 

A brightness to her eye, 
That all the wealth of old Croesus 

Could never, never buy. 

The tawny flock of goats 
Came at her childish call 

From glen and wooded steep. 
Where brooks like silver brawl. 

175 



When the slanting shadows 

Grew longer from the west, 
The sharp tinkle of the goatsherd 

From vale and towering crest, 
Where they drift from fen and mountain 

To lick the little hand. 
That gives them their bread and porridge. 

While quietly they stand, 
Till she milk'd from each lush udder 

The rich and creamy foam. 
That gives such good health and comfort 

To the poor cotter's humble home. 



She was the fair idol of the island, 

And rul'd each monkish will. 
With all the sweet, loving fondness. 

They knew no thought of ill. 
Even mass and beads were neglected, 

For the laughing, willful waif 
Ruled all their hearts and feelings. 

While she herself was safe 
From all base alluring passions. 

That degrade a churchman's rest. 
Thus bring strife and bitter longing, 

To the friar's humble breast. 



The seasons passed by quickly, 
This romping waif had grown 

To sweet years of happy girlhood. 
The human seed was sown, 

176 



Which only lack'd the germ, 

Of a tall lover's plighted word. 
To poise the young pinions, 

Of this unhappy mountain bird. 
She sat beside the cross 

That crown'd the shaded spring, 
There she gave fair thoughts and fancies 

The swoop of dreamland's wing. 
She wonder'd why the God 

Who made the birds to sing, 
Ne'er gave to her heart a lover. 

To her soul, a noble king. 



She would wander from clifif to cliff. 

Or sit entranced for hours^ 
And dream of far-off booklands. 

With their entrancing powers. 
She had read in Greek and Latin, 

Of worlds, whose ancient days 
Were spent in rude games and gossip. 

Had read Homer's warlike lays. 
She would dream of these bright pictures. 

And wonder if some day 
A grand prince in gold and feather 

Would steal her heart away. 



Her face was like the madonna's 
That crown'd the altar's height, 

And spread its radiant beauty, 
In the chancel's hallowed light. 

177 



Her white brow was broad and saintly. 

Swept by a wealth of hair, 
That curled in graceful ringlets 

Around her face so fair. 
*Twould have charmed an artist's soul, 

Until Angelo's face of old 
Would have been worthless dross 

Beside the purest gold. 
Her dark eyes were large and dreamy. 

Like Circassia's liquid mould ; 
They were fringed with long drooping lashes. 

Sweet doorways to the soul ; 
Her nose was straight and chisel'd 

With strictly Grecian grace, 
That enhanc'd the antique beauty 

Of her oval dreamy face ; 
Her sweet mouth was small and piquant. 

Like Cupid's fatal bow, 
With lips as red as red berries 

And teeth as white as snow. 

Her flocks were all neglected, 

With bleating still they came, 
They licked the little hand. 

Yet licked her hand in vain; 
Her thoughts were forever roving 

Far from her island home, 
Where the souless sun of fashion 

With worldly splendor shone. 
The good monks were sorely grieved 

To see their darling pine, 
Full many a prayer was ofifer'd. 

That God's own light might shine 

178 



upon the guileless soul, 

So filled with harrowing dread. 
They prayed for holy blessings 

On her dear, sinless head. 
Satan, with all his wiles. 

Had sorely press'd her heart 
With pretentious longings 

Not of her life a part. 



One day the monks, as usual, 

Climbed the oaken stair. 
To gaze upon the ocean 

And breathe its wholesome air. 
Ah ! a vessel in the offing 

Stood straight towards the shore. 
And dropped its heavy anchor 

Before the oaken door. 
A boat was slowly lower'd, 

Every seat was full, 
A half of a dozen seamen. 

With strong, steady pull, 
Landed hard beside the convent. 

And slowly made their way 
To where the good monks were standing. 

Filled with surprised dismay. 



We crave your reverent pardons 

For this untimely call ; 
We came to ask you some questions 

Of a ship so trim and tall 

179 



That foundered on this island 

Some eighteen years or more; 
That struck and went to pieces 

On this rough, rocky shore. 
Yes, a vessel here was stranded. 

And left us no single name 
To tell us of her true bearings, 

Or whence the good ship came. 
All perish'd in the storm 

Except a puny child, 
Who is this far convent's idol. 

So sweet, so pure, so mild. 
The graves may now be seen 

On yon adjoining height, 
Within the quiet shadow 

Of the sun's most westward flight. 

Good fathers of the Church, 
We came for weal or woe, 

To gather each survivor 

That those at home might know 

Of those who perished sadly 
So many years ago. 

The convent lost all its gladness. 

For, from that fatal day 
When Eva sailed for England, 

An isle so far away, 
They mourned with bitter sadness, 

Their lives seemed filled with pain; 
They had lost their darling Eva — 

She would ne'er return again. 

i8o 



The herd lost its keeper; 

From the far mountain height 
You could hear them softly bleating 

Through stilly hours of night, 
Calling, ever calling, 

For the hand that gave them their bread, 
The soft hand that led them fondly, 

When dying day had fled. 
Her greyhounds would listen 

For each familiar step, 
And trace each woodland path. 

The track how well they kept; 
Yet always traced them shoreward 

To the very water side, 
Where they lost their little mistress, 

Who sailed with time and tide. 

Eva's tears of childhood. 

Like the fickle April shower. 
Was gladdened by the sunshine 

That gilded day and hour. 
She liv'd in lands of wonder, 

At the scenes that change had brought, 
A radiant queen of beauty. 

Her hand was early sought 
By peers, titled nobles. 

Who offered their fame and land 
For possession of her beauty, 

Her shapely, jewel'd hand. 

Her mind was untouched ; 

Her heart could surely feel 
That her suitors gay and noble 

Had hearts as hard as steel ; 

i8i 



That words were only lies, 

To cover base deceit, 
Like their outward wrappings. 

Worn only on the street. 
Her clear mind was pure and lofty ; 

Hence with a nameless dread, 
She felt that her life was drifting, 

With breakers still ahead. 

She yearned for something real, 

In a world where every fop 
Was the latest glass of fashion. 

Just turned out from the shop. 
Ah! she yearned for hearts and minds. 

Where truth and candor dwell. 
Where friends are truly friends. 

Where envy's hated spell 
Does not weave the centaur's poisoned robe, 

A circe's fatal charm, 
That kills us with all their madness, 

Or fills pure hearts with harm. 
She longed to see the island, 

Where ev'rything was true. 
Where all human hearts were guileless. 

Where ev'ry transient view 
Was light'd by the sunshine. 

That floods a truthful soul. 
Unwavering as the needle 

That swings to the far northern pole. 

Of such was her world of fashion. 
With its coldly, glittering glare, 

A harbor for all envy, 
A servant of despair. 

182 



Fashions, words, polished phrases, 

That sHp from mouth and Up, 
And leave the dregs of false friendship. 

For starving lips to sip. 
She could hear the sweet goatherd's bells. 

How they tinkled in her heart ; 
She could hear their plaintive bleating, 

That pierced her like a dart ; 
She could hear the bearded fathers, 

As they chanted solemn mass ; 
All these tender feelings 

Were scenes to quickly pass. 
Like the ghosts of fev'rish fancy 

They haunt us like a spell, 
They linger in the memory, 

This storehouse where we dwell. 
She longed to kneel before the altar 

Or the stone cross beside the spring. 
And worship with all the feeling 

That taught her heart to sing. 

The good monks were idly standing 

By the high turrets of the wall, 
They looked with blank amazement 

As they heard the boatswain call, 
"Pipe the men to quarters !" 

A boat pulled from the vessel's side ; 
It was our happy Eva, 

The island's joy and pride. 
You may know the gladness 

That made the convent ring, 
With shouting and laughter 

That sped on happy wing, 

183 



Till the distant herds while browsing. 

Saw their child friend of early days 
Pass out from the convent. 

They haste through shady ways 
To greet their grown-up friend, 

To lick the dainty hand 
That made the lonely island 

A dreamer's fairy land. 

She tired of life's great shadow, 

Pale phantoms of a name, 
That change with ev'ry current. 

And follow wealth and fame. 
She lived to make those happy 

Whose hearts were ever true. 
Eva felt that sweetest blessings 

A heart can ere bestrew 
Are link'd with fond affection 

For those friends of childhood days, 
The friends whose faith abiding. 

Like a fountain in full play. 
Sparkles in the sunshine 

Like iridescent joy; 
'Twould be some fool or madman 

Who would the gift destroy. 
Rounds of daily duty 

Gave to her cheek the rosy glow, 
That paints, cosmetic powders, 

Could ne'er so well bestow. 
She gave to them her life, 

The life these monks had sav'd, 
Till life, in deepening shadows, 

Led onward to the grave. 

184 



GRANDPA IS DEAD. 
I. 

Please discontinue our paper, because grandpa is dead, 

His chair in the corner is empty now, 
The little brass lamp that stood by the bed 

Is just as he left it, when he read us how 
To cure the blight in the orchard, to kill weevil in corn, 

To care for the stock, to cook and make pies, 
Gave names of the missing and those just born, 

Read us stories, poems, news from the skies, 
Of cheap goods to be sold, must be sold for a song, 

The tariff protection, collisions and wrecks; 
His sweet, quivering voice was not very strong, 

Yet he read every line, without the aid of his specks. 



II. 



Every Saturday eve, from year to year, 

Grandpa took down from the brass nail 
His old-fashioned hat, brown, crumpled and queer, 

And went to the office for mail ; 
He laughed when you rak'd the tariff and rings, 

When you routed Republican ranks, 
With your figures and facts, disagreeable tilings. 

For this, he sends you his thanks ; 
His old hat and his cane are in the back hall. 

His specks are on the small oval stand 
Where old files of "The Pic," the peer of them all, 

Were stack'd with his own feeble hand. 



185 



III. 

Grandpa was proud of the close interest we took 

In your columns, so brimful of news ; 
He laughed till he cried, his fat sides fairly shook. 

At the pot-boiler's family stews. 
We gather'd to listen, then we heard him explain. 

How politics was rotten and trifling enough. 
That an office of trust was an office of gain ; 

For the statesmen to-day were not made of such stuff 
As those who lived in his day. 

"When I am dead, stop my paper," said he, 
"File the numbers securely away 

And thank that great paper for me." 



AN ODE TO HUMAN RIGHTS. 

I. 

In what strange mould are statesmen cast? 

Ah ! not in the mould of the honest past. 

When gold was yellow dross, 

Nor counted they the servile toss 

When honor was at stake. 

Then, statesmen lived for honor's sake. 

11. 

Assail thy freedom, can It be? 
That worth should crook the fawning knee. 
To selfish might — that trenchant pow'r 
Should sleep in that dread hour, 

i86 



When might will trample in the dust, 
Through minions of the hydra's trust, 
The rights for which our fathers fought. 
Say! shall such lessons be for naught. 

III. 

Warp not thy judgment, let not party will 

Hold thee in thrall. Oh ! be thou still, 

Brave heroes, who will do and dare 

To lay the festering ulcer bare ; 

It cankers with the flight of years, 

And drowns pale freedom in a nation's tears. 



CHRISTMAS AT COL. C. H. ALLEN'S, A. D. 1899. 

I. 

Greetings to this hallowM morn, 

When all the world is glad, 
Behold! a Savior humbly born. 

Who with humility was clad. 
Peace ! for the sons of men — good will. 

For all the living earth ; 
Let each everlasting hill 

Sing of The Godking's birth. 

II. 

Blessed be this festal time, 

The most cherished of the year; 
Ring out! oh, brazen chime. 

Another year is here. 

187 



Enjoy this present greeting, 
Always thankful for the past. 

May each future meeting 
Be happier than the last. 

III. 

Twine each bright holly berry, 

With the yule-tide's xmas cheer; 
Be gay, be glad, be merry. 

Bless the closing of the year. 
Thank God for all His blessing, 

Thank God that we still live; 
Our errors oft confessing. 

Forgiven! oft forgive. 

IV. 

We drink to our generous host, 

And our grand hostess, too. 
The bonniest, bravest toast, - 

Thus our pledges we renew. 
For the past and future years — 

The past, with all its sorrows. 
Its sunshine and its tears ; 

The future, with its fairer morrows. 



V. 

There are no vacant places. 
None have passed across. 

Or left us tear-stain traces 
To mark a comrade's loss. 

i88 



Then fill our empty glasses 
With red, convivial wine, 

While each toast flippant passes 
Around this happy line. 

VI. 

Here's to the Colonel and his wife, 

Who thus honor us to-day ; 
May all their future life 

Pass pleasantly away. 
May all the years still find 

Them true to life and love ; 
Earth's harbingers that bind 

Them to a fairer home above. 



LITTLE SPANISH PAPITE. 

I. 

Did you not know the Spanish child Papite, 
With soft brown hands and shapely feet. 
Who climbed the terraced vineyard where 
The purpling grapes perfumed the air ? 

11. 

The cottage nestled midst the trees 
That flanked the towering Pyranees. 
A brooklet curling, purling sung 
Its silvery song, where tendrils clung 
To the ribbed rock, and the pebbles bright. 
That drifted from the misty height. 

189 



III. 

Paplte, roguish g}'psy, spoiled and wild, 
Was dark Batisto's only living- child ; 
Headstrong, wilful, she grew apace, 
So round of limb and fair of face. 
Fretting a»t time, and the padre's prayers, 
Coyly humming the crooning airs 
That came from the madre's saintly lips. 
Tasting wine where the wild bee sips, 
Nectar, from the trellised wine 
That clustered lush o'er the steep incline. 

IV. 

Ah ! then came Andaluce, fair to behold, 

With eyes of night, and bearing bold ; 

The olive of his sun burnt cheek, 

Flamed neath his sombrero's high crown'd peak ; 

Out from the brim flashed a jasper eye. 

That could hate with a hate, or melt with a sigh. 

V. 

Batisto frowned, and his heart grew cold, 

He drew his stiletto from its rare sheath of gold, 

But what was his threat to the youthful pair. 

That lived on love and tread on air. 

To the saints and God, the madre prayed, 

And counted her beads, while the shy lovers strayed 

Through untrod paths, on the mist mountain's side, 

Where doves coo, coo, and violets hide 

Their modest bloom in the still dark glen, 

Far from the haunts of restless men. 

IQO 



VI. 



In a convent wall near tO' old Seville, 
Crowning the height of a shadowing hill, 
Papite wept till her heart was sore, 
She counted her beads and pondered o'er 
The love that was true by remembrance fed. 
And love like an angel, ruefully plead, 
Andaluce with a matedore's renown, 
Amused the people of the antique town. 



VII. 



Papite crept forth from the convent's drear hall, 
And sped to the lists, ere the trumpet's call 
Heralded the coming of the Castillian king, 
Who ordered the sport in the tier spaced ring. 
Pale was her face, her heart stood still. 
Though proud she was of her lover's skill. 
As he spurred his steed to the bovine's side. 
And prodded the tawny bespotted hide. 
Alas ! for Papite, alas ! for the day, 
Wounded to death, her lover lay, 
Quivering, shivering, weltering in gore, 
His spirit passed on to the gray evermore. 



191 



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